Tears of the Kingdom players make steps towards developing perpetual motion device

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players are conducting research on the development of vehicles that can move without a traditional power source. They have shown off aircraft and other vehicles that work without consuming Zonai Energy or Batteries. 

On the r/HyruleEngineering subreddit, where Tears of the Kingdom players share all kinds of inventions on a daily basis, research is being conducted on vehicles that can move without the use of a traditional power source. These vehicles don’t rely on Zonai Energy or Batteries and instead use the wind power generated by turning a propeller with only a Steering Stick Zonai Device. 

This experimentation into vehicles without power sources was prompted by the below post written by user werrcat. They created a device that combines a Steering Stick with a Stake that is driven into the ground and has two wheels and a wooden plank attached to it. When Link operates the Steering Stick, it causes the two wheels to spin. No Zonai Energy is used and there are no Batteries attached to the device, so in other words, the wheels are spinning with only the Steering Stick.  

After seeing this phenomenon, another user, AnswerDeep8792, posted a video that shows them using only a Steering Stick to make a propeller spin via the same process. As an aside, the propeller that is being used can be obtained from the Gemimik Shrine. You can’t carry them out like Zonai Devices, but you can fuse them to a weapon or shield while in the shrine and then separate them in Tarrey Town in order to use them in your builds. 

The first device shown off by AnswerDeep8792 is of incredibly simple design and consists of only a Steering Stick, Stake, and propeller. When the Steering Stick is tilted, it causes the propeller to spin. They also showed two other devices based on the same design principle, one using a Stabilizer and a wooden board, and the other a Hover Stone. In those cases, the Stabilizer and Hover Stone do consume Zonai energy. 

Later, AnswerDeep8792 improved their design, creating devices that replace the Stake with cores from a Flux Construct III and I. Like the other designs, tilting the Steering Stick causes the propeller to spin, and a Stabilizer attached to the device provides the necessary balance for it to rise up into the air using the power provided by the propeller.  

But AnswerDeep8792 wasn’t satisfied with stopping there, further improving the design. This version does away with the Flux Construct I core and only uses the core of a Flux Construct III. Other objects, like two Small wheels, are also added to maintain the weight balance so that the propeller can operate correctly. Not only can this design fly straight up, but it can also travel in a horizontal direction, albeit in a slightly unsteady manner. 

Finally, AnswerDeep8792 was ready to unveil the “first completely unpowered aircraft,” which makes use of a string of different mechanisms. The body of the plane is constructed with materials such as the elevator railings which captured the interest of the community as an ultra-light material with very high air resistance (Related article). The engine is composed of two propellers and two sails. The propeller is operated by a Hover Stone and a Flux Construct III core. Though seemingly not entirely sure, AnswerDeep8792 speculates that the build generates power via the consistent pressure and/or friction between the Flux Construct III core and the Hover Stone, which are being compressed by a spring. This force induces some kind of effect due to the physics in the game, which then causes the propeller to spin. 

It should be noted that the connection between the spring and the Hover Stone is achieved via the “Q-Link (quantum link)” glitch that was fixed in update Ver.1.2.0 (Related article). Apparently, it is still possible to create the aircraft in Ver.1.2.0 by using a glitch that involves the monster Like Like, but the process is supposedly even more complicated.  

Another user on the subreddit, mcharguejp, posted a mechanism that can drive a propeller without Stakes, Hover Stones, or Flux Construct cores. By using a spring to press two railings against one another, it creates enough friction to spin the propeller. They noted that they tried to angle the propeller so that it pulls the device into the air, and that while it worked, it was too unbalanced and immediately flips over. They entrusted the task of making a version capable of stable flight to the rest of the community.  

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2023-07-14 07:54 JST)