It’s brutally hot, so if you have the option to stay indoors, be sure to cool off with a new three-hour montage in which a devoted dad crafts absurdly complicated, functional wooden vehicles for his kids.
And if you want even more craftsmanship, look no further than Truong Van Dao. The YouTuber has spent over four years documenting at least 20 increasingly wild wooden construction projects he built for his kids, including a tiny tank, a Cybertruck, and a Ferrari. Initially focusing on shoebox-sized replicas, he gradually scaled the projects up to drivable kid-sized luxury cars before moving on to a fleet of mini vehicles with real engines, pedals, and steering wheels. But one of his latest projects is his boldest and most complex yet—a drivable, time-machine-inspired wooden contraption based on renderings created using a generative AI art program.
Unlike most of Father’s vehicles from the past, the wooden buggy is not based on a specific real-life counterpart. DesignBoom explains, the car’s fantastical, gear-heavy frame is built around four large batteries housed in a metal chassis. Overall, the rounded edges and arrangement of mechanical aesthetic flourishes like the dozens of working gears and moving pistons evoke a steampunk feel. It’s very cool, and as many of them as possible should be chugging around the streets. Or at least, there needs to be a lot more videos documenting the wooden sci-fi car’s journeys around Vietnam.
(Related: From sound cars to VR: How GM is developing an electric fleet at top speed.)
Part of the appeal of Truong Van Dao’s videos is that there are generally no voiceover explanations, so viewers can just enjoy the laborious process of designing, making and building the tiny concept car. Budding woodworkers will hopefully not be too discouraged by the lack of step-by-step instructions, as he still manages to provide plenty of more in-depth insight into the fabrication and assembly.
But for most viewers, just watching a dad delight his kids — and dozens of neighborhood onlookers — is satisfying enough. Generative AI systems have drawn a lot of (often justified) criticism over the past two years, but if people like Truong Van Dao want to use them to come up with outlandish ideas, so be it. Especially if it means fans can eventually test drive some of those things.
