Hasta La Creative!

For decades, urban cyclists have been seeking the ultimate bike lock, only to find each one’s vulnerabilities eventually demonstrated on YouTube. But what if the answer were in the bike itself?

Designed by three Chilean engineering students, the Yerka Project is an “unstealable” bike that functions as its own lock.

If the video below is anything to go by, it looks like they took The Club and built a bicycle into it. I don’t mean that as glancing praise, either—it really is a really cool idea.

The guys behind Yerka (which is kind of a Nordic word for “strength”) have been experimenting with a few different designs, including combination lock frames, smartphone-enabled locks, and a step-through frame.

Yerka is still in the prototype phase, with a Kickstarter campaign in the works to raise money for large-scale production of their finished bike models. 

Henry Wang and Chris Curro, students at Cooper Union's Albert Nerken School of Engineering, deliver a Boxing Week viral smash in support of their Rapid Packing Container, a cardboard box that's easy to assemble, open and recycle.

It uses about 15% less paper than traditional boxes, takes no tape to seal, can be opened by pressing its lid and is even reversible for label-free reuse. The inventors are seeking a patent and manufacturing partners.

Some commenters say the new design would come undone in real-world warehouse conditions. Even so, I give major points to the young innovators for trying to find a new way to deliver the goods—and for posting a clip that's packed enough of a wallop to generate 2.5 million YouTube views in less than week.