I believe there is also a social element to this, as it is rather an unfortunately overlooked detail that bike-rental bays are often installed by businesses throughout metropolitan regions
as a means of discouraging the homeless, who cannot afford to use these devices, which storage after all consumes public space .. giving the homeless a way to extract value from things is, in my opinion, an admirably placed bit of design altruism, and I, for one, hope to see many more examples of this kind of thinking.
I have often wondered what sort of conversion it would take to use an AK47 and a box of ammo to drill a well/pump water, instead of suppress human beings.. transformative technology is highly interesting, don't you agree?
>I'm quite surprised it can be built for £3, unless the battery is incredibly small.
Herein lies the rub - can the homeless build these things for £1 a piece, somewhere in London?
Because if the answer is more oil-based traffic across the worlds oceans to get these things made, I'm afraid the irony of the builder/user distinction is rather unfortunate...