In mid-March, the cold of winter has completely faded away. The land outside Bangta City that was originally frozen due to the severe cold began to become hot and humid, and countless green grass broke out of the soil.
This season is a good time to go out for an outing, so when the weather is fine, there will always be countless young masters and ladies from noble families riding in their own luxury carriages, driving out of Bangta City towards the green wilderness outside the city. Go ahead.
Although today's Bangta City is surrounded by several straight and flat roads, and the western suburbs are filled with various factories because they have been designated as industrial zones by the city lord, and there is not much green space left, the southern suburbs are because they have been designated by the city lord as an industrial zone. The adults determined it to be a leisure and entertainment area, not only retaining green grass and trees, but also opening an additional canal to divert water from the Sandy River, transforming this southern suburb that was originally just a wilderness into a green mountain and green water. , and a great place with the singing of birds and the fragrance of flowers.
Today is another sunny day. The sun has just risen in the sky, and countless carriages from noble families in the city are driving out of the south gate of Bangta City and heading towards the greenery in the south of the city.
Countless nobles, young masters and ladies planned to take advantage of the good weather to go outing in the countryside and hold a relaxing and joyful outdoor feast.
However, today is a little different from usual.
Among the countless carriages rushing out of the city gate, there were two different things.
The young men and ladies on the carriage heard the exclamations outside and opened the curtains of the carriage one after another. They saw two people sitting on a carriage consisting of two wheels and an iron bracket on the road leading to the southern suburbs. It's flat and looks weird.
Two people stepped on two pedals, which kept rotating rapidly around a disk as they pedaled.
As the disc rotates, the two wheels on the iron frame keep rolling forward, driving the two people to keep moving forward on the road.
What surprised everyone was that the strange thing the two people were sitting on looked very thin, with only a bracket except for two wheels. But he was able to move forward very quickly with the two people on top, surpassing several carriages in an instant, and running in front of many noble young masters and ladies.
Watching the two people riding this unknown strange thing as fast as lightning on the road, no matter they were the nobles, young masters or ladies on the carriage. Even the pedestrians on the road could not help but be stunned.
What is that thing sitting under those two people's butts? How could you run with them so fast
However, those two people actually disappeared in the distance on the road, leaving everyone's questions unanswered.
The next day was another sunny day.
As usual, countless carriages drove out of the city gate and rushed outside the city.
But at nine o'clock in the morning at the same time, those two strange-looking things once again rushed two people out of the city gate, once again surpassed countless carriages, and disappeared at the far end of the road.
The doubts in people's minds have deepened.
On the third day, it was sunny again.
The same situation happened again.
Day four…
The fifth day…
…
For a whole week, every day was a rare sunny day, and every day countless nobles, young masters and ladies wanted to go out for an outing. But every day, those two strange things rushed out of the city gate with two people, and then quickly disappeared from everyone's sight.
After seven consecutive days of accumulation, this mysterious strange thing spread throughout Bangta City, arousing everyone's curiosity.
Someone with good intentions had been waiting outside the South City Gate in the next few days and drew the appearance of those two strange-looking things.
After analysis. Everyone discovered that the principle of these two weird-looking things is actually very simple. They just rely on two flat tires to press on the ground, use an iron frame as a support, and then use two connected gears as a drive. Finally, let the above Some people just use pedaling as motivation.
However, the principle seems to be very simple. These two strange things can actually run so fast driven by human power. It's really incredible.
At the beginning, people didn't know what this thing was or where it came from, but later some careful people guessed something from the two tires.
Tires are now only produced by Xinfei Chamber of Commerce, and Xinfei Chamber of Commerce has always been able to produce all kinds of strange gadgets, so these two strange things are most likely magic machines newly developed by Xinfei Chamber of Commerce!
All doubts and speculations were finally answered on the eighth day. .
Early in the morning on the eighth day, the freshly released "Bangta Daily" finally revealed the answer to the mystery.
People's guess was correct. These two strange things were indeed the latest products developed by the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce. However, unlike what everyone imagined, these two strange things had nothing to do with magic.
This thing called a bicycle is a human-powered machine. It's completely human-powered and contains no magic.
But even if it is only driven by human power, as long as the person riding the bicycle is strong enough, he can still make the bicycle go very fast.
According to internal information obtained by "Bangta Daily", it is said that when Xinfei Chamber of Commerce was testing bicycles, it was even possible to ride a bicycle from Bangta City in the early morning and arrive at Luoyu Valley before noon.
You must know that the distance between Luoyu Valley and Bangta City is fully 60 kilometers. Even if you use the best carriage to travel there, it will take more than three hours.
The speed of this bicycle is actually not much slower than the best carriage!
After seeing the report in "Bangta Daily", people instantly became excited.
With such a good thing, it will be much more convenient when traveling in the future!
Although carriages are nice, raising horses is simply unaffordable for ordinary families.
Although the urban public transportation system in Bangta City has begun to be gradually established, and you can reach most of the places you want to go by horse-drawn carriage, but riding a horse-drawn carriage requires money, not to mention that there are many places that cannot be reached by horse-drawn carriage.
Compared with this simple and lightweight bicycle, the carriage is undoubtedly much bulkier.
So after confirming that this bicycle was indeed produced by the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce, the door of the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce Product Service Center in the city was instantly crowded by countless people. Countless people came to ask when this bicycle would go on sale. People can’t wait to buy one.
"It seems that there is no need to worry about the sales of this bicycle." Xu Yi laughed, put down the "Bangta Daily" in his hand, and turned to look at the high-speed rotation of the tires in the magic machine tool R&D workshop driven by a wind magic engine. bike.
Strictly speaking, this bicycle is just an accessory developed by Xu Yi to develop the engine.
Although bicycles are only an unimportant commercial product in the light industrial system, the bicycle product contains many extremely important engineering technologies.
For example, power structures, bearing drives, gear castings, etc. are a series of technologies that can be applied to many aspects. Will be used in bicycle production.
Xu also asked Canby and others to develop bicycles. In addition to adding a new product to the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce, it also allowed Canby and others to gain more experience and theoretical knowledge about these technologies during the research and development process.
This is very different from Earth.
Mechanical engineers on Earth first learn theoretical knowledge and then start practical production.
As for the mechanical engineers represented by Canby in the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce. However, under the guidance of Xu Yi, he first carried out practical production and then learned theoretical knowledge.
There was nothing that could be done about it. Xu Yi wanted to speed up the development of the industrial system, so he could only forcefully instill his theoretical knowledge into them like this.
Fortunately, Canby and other dwarves are really talented in this area. Xu Yi just gave them a little hint, and they were able to understand deeply and even draw inferences.
By developing bicycles, Canby and others have become mechanical engineers with a deep understanding of power theory.
The next step, Xu Yi is to let them combine the wind magic engine that has been developed to a certain extent with the bicycle.
If it is possible to create a magic bicycle with a wind magic engine as the driving force, it means that the research and development of the magic engine can truly be put into practice.
Now the experiments being done by Canby et al. It is a test of the power output stability of the wind magic engine and a test of the bearing strength.
This test has lasted for ten days now, but Xu Yi has always been dissatisfied with the results.
First of all, the wind magic engine cannot maintain output all the time, but it often stops without warning, and the output power is sometimes fast and sometimes slow.
After careful inspection by Xu Yi and several researchers from the Magic Research Institute, they found that this was because the wind magic array imprinted inside the engine rotated at high speed due to the high-speed rotation of the bearings inside the engine. It caused the air flow inside the engine to be turbulent, which also had a certain impact on the magic array, thus affecting the output power.
If this influence accumulates to a certain extent, the magic circle will temporarily lose its effect, causing the engine to lose driving power.
Another very important issue is the material issue.
The bicycle's gears and bearings do not have much problem at low speeds, but after maintaining high speed rotation for a long time. Losses will be greatly increased.
According to the assessment, if the wind magic engine is kept running at the highest speed, whether it is the bearings of the bicycle or the bearings of the engine itself, they may not last for ten hours before they will suffer from extremely severe wear and tear, or even break.
Xu Yi has nothing to do about this for the time being.
Because this is a material problem, and the material problem happens to be the most difficult problem to solve in the industrial system.
Although the industrial system of the Celestial Empire on Earth is basically complete. But it has been lagging behind in material technology.
As a mechanical engineer from China, Xu Yi was not particularly good at material issues. Coupled with national restrictions, he was even less able to master the most advanced material technology.
Regarding this issue, he could only place his hopes on the Materials Research Institute led by Chief Shrubi.
before this. This materials research institute led by patriarch Shi Lui has given Xu Yi many surprises.
Now Xu Yi will leave this question to him, and when the non-ferrous metal veins in the Black Rice Wasteland are mined and smelted, I believe that Chief Shi Lui will give Xu Yi a satisfactory answer.
Until then, all we can do is wait patiently.
No matter how eager Xu Yi is for engine research and development, there is no room for neglect in mechanical technology research and development.
As a genius mechanical engineer on Earth, Xu also has this awareness and also has this patience.