Other

Michigan State University

Ohio University

Michael P Held

Curtis Wilkerson

Marcia J Kieliszewski

Federica Brandizzi

Sang Jin Kim

Li Tan

A modular retractable door assembly for open-air vehicle and method of articulation during stowage and deployment. The assembly is operable with an open-air vehicle to selectively cover and uncover the passenger side openings of the vehicle with doors and rear panels that pivot and slide inwardly and outwardly to selectively cover passenger side openings in the vehicle, and stow away in a roof enclosure. Two doors and two rear panels hingedly articulate between a deployed position covering the passenger openings; and a stowed position stowed on a pair of stacked rails inside a roof enclosure. The door and rear panel operate independently of each other. Multiple upper hinge members allow the doors and rear panels to pivot about a longitudinal roof support members of the vehicle. The door and rear panels slide in and out of the roof enclosure along traversing roof support members inside the roof enclosure.

Modular retractable door assembly for open-air vehicle and method of articulation during stowage and deployment

An open-air car canopy and cover assembly and method of operation provides a rearwardly extending canopy that shields an uncovered rear deck of an open-air car from a deployed position, and when in an undeployed position, the panels retract, becoming limp and folding upon themselves. An upper pocket covers the panel folds in the undeployed position by encapsulating the panels and the rotatable supporting bracket. Lateral and rear flaps having fasteners and rear flap fasteners retain the panels out of the rear sight line and side openings of the open-air car. A roof mount detachably attaches the canopy to the roof of the open-air car with a curved flange that hooks over a roof support structure, and metallic tensioned hooks that hook under the roof support structure. A tensioned hinge member is operable with rotatable supporting bracket to retain canopy in a fixed position between deployed and undeployed positions.

Open-air car canopy and cover assembly and method of operation

A body-panel golf-cart having multi-functional canopy-supports, a roof-canopy having U-type storage-channels about its periphery, and a lower body-panel. The multi-functional roof-canopy back-supports are either sited in-line with the cart's structural struts or encompass the structural struts to widen the space between the supports providing an enlarged space between the rear supports for viewing and storage. Roof-canopy and roof-canopy back-supports are formed as a one piece unit with a lower body-panel that extends from the rear-most of cart to under the seat providing a streamlined cart with more storage capacity. Increased roof-canopy storage space offers out-of-the-way positioning of cart's side protective-enclosure brackets and rollers and out-of-the-way storage of the protective-enclosures when undeployed. Roof-supports offer tight closure for side protective-enclosures and space for cooler and sand and seed box. Rear-canopy is stored in roof-canopy back-supports and space under roof-canopy and secured using magnets. Roof water drains through conduits in roof and supports.

Roof-canopy, multi-function roof-canopy supports, and rear-canopy for a golf cart

Plants described herein have increased biomass and are more readily digested into fermentable sugars when the plants express increased levels of one or more types of CGR2 and/or CGR3 enzymes.

Digestibility of plant biomass

A battery reserve system for open-air carts and a method for its use are taught. The system contains a reserve battery bank and custom designed brackets, compatible with and attachable to small, low-speed car frameworks currently structured to hold only a single battery bank, to support the reserve batteries while maintaining the cart's balance and stability and for use with newly built enlarged carts. The reserve battery system increases the currently available cart's travel distance to minimally twice the distance provided by the cart's single battery bank without requiring battery charging. One currently available electrically powered golf cart is a Yamaha DRIVE&#xae;. The reserve bank of batteries can be a 48-Volt bank of any desired configuration. A battery disconnect switch for connecting or disconnecting the reserve battery bank with the initial battery bank of the electrically powered golf-cart is provided. Space for golf bags and other accessories is maintained.

Method for increasing travel time for open-air carts without requiring battery charging

A multi-component open-air vehicle roof structured to have a retractable enclosure storage compartment along a length of a driver's and passenger's side of the roof, and retractable enclosures to be supported and protected by the retractable enclosure storage compartments, and a rear-side retractable enclosure with a choice of having either rear-side roof supports shaped to act as a storage compartment or having a rear-side compartment as part of the rear-side edge area of the roof, either to act as a roof support storage compartment for the rear-side retractable enclosure when it is retracted. On each roof side there is a wing valence support for supporting a decorative valence and an optional lighting system. The retractable enclosures may be powered or manually controlled. The roof's ribbed, single-ply construction provides for a stronger roof with a plurality of storage compartments for a plurality of accessories within the ribs.

Multi-component roof for an open-air vehicle

Mechanically or powered activated, retractable, partition-able enclosure-panels with or without custom brackets for any style open-air-vehicle having roof structures, including cars and boats, is taught. The partition-able enclosure panels for a driver's side, passenger's side, or rear opening of an open-air car, each include two or more partition-sections, and a rotatable spindle, where each of the partition-sections is designed to be attached to and detached from an adjacent partition-section, and each of the partition-sections is fixedly or non-fixedly attachable to the rotating spindle, so that when the partitions are attached to each other and the spindle is rotated all partitions are controlled by said rotating spindle and when the partitions are detached from each other, only the fixedly attached partition is controlled by the rotating spindle providing for deployment or un-deployment of either a panel or a partition-section. A roof or roof-support with built-in panel supporting devices is also taught.

Mechanized or motored retractable enclosure panels and their support brackets

Non-naturally occurring peptides/polypeptides/proteins comprising the crosslinking motif, Tyr-X-Tyr, wherein X is any amino acid, and methods of preparing the same.

Cross-linkable glycoproteins and methods of making the same

An enclosure assembly () for enclosing a cargo compartment of an open-air cart having a cap () shaped to mate with a rear section of a roof () of a cart for the secure fitting of cap () over the rear section of the roof of the cart, brackets () attachable to the cart using the cart's existing structure, and a cover () one edge of which is to be attached to cap () and its side portions to brackets (), so when cover () is attached to cap () and brackets (), assembly () is formed and ready for installation on the cart. Installation is achieved when cap () is positioned over the rear section of the roof and brackets () are attached to the cart using only attachments that exist on the cart, providing for a two-step installation without altering or drilling any holes in the cart.

Club protector

Mechanized or motor activated retractable enclosure-panels and custom brackets for any style open-air-vehicle having roof structures, including cars and boats, is taught. Installation takes less than 20 minutes with no drilling required, in most cases. The system includes brackets to directly rotably support the panels. The brackets are bolted directly onto roof supports via preexisting roof-support bolt holes, or onto the track bar that comes with some specialty roofs. A mechanized and/or motorized back-panel completely protects passengers and cargo from the elements using vent flaps for complete corner coverage. Rotational mechanized activators include pull-chains, roller pulleys, and spring-mechanized activators that can be motorized. For vehicles not fitted with a roof structure, a support frame for supporting retractable, mechanized and/or motorized panels is designed. Only a single protective panel is required per vehicle side regardless of vehicle size. Only four brackets are required to support three panels.

Growing community of inventors

Orchard Park, NY, United States of America

Michael P Held