In the future, we'll all be driving electric ... shopping carts?

Why waste a perfectly good used shopping cart when it can be recycled into something fun? Seeking to definitively answer that question is a twenty-year-old MIT student named Charles Guan who normally spends his free time building competition-spec battle robots. Our favorite of Guan's projects would have to be the LOLrioKart, obviously a play on the classic Mario Kart series of games from Nintendo.

First assembled using an old NiCad battery pack that was quickly nearing the end of its life, the LOLrioKart is well into its second generation using some leftover lithium nanophosphate cells from A123 that the company had donated to the University. This latest 33 Ah battery pack sends its 48 volts to a Briggs and Stratton ETEK DC pancake electric motor, which operates through a DIY rear differential and to the tiny little tires out back. As you might expect, hilarity ensues. Click past the break for a couple of videos.

[Source: LOLrioKart via Jalopnik]

VIDEO:

The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience.

The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience.