Stirling engines have been touted as a good alternative for current internal combustion engines, since they can be powered with mostly anything that burns and are much simpler than steam engines for small applications like running a car. Here’s a guy who built a six-piston Stirling engine, at home, just to prove that this old engine design is actually scalable.
Now, I expect someone like Dean Kamen (the inventor of the Segway) to start applying such an engine to an already-retrofitted Stirling engine car that he has (the DEKA Revolt), or some research institute to improve the efficiency of this design so it burns hydrogen or biofuel efficiently and make it better and more flexible than any ICE on the planet.
Even if all of the above won’t happen anytime soon, it’s still an interesting project to be developed in schools or to teach your kid some physics.
An Engine with wooden parts which works with heat ?
Not very clever !
I would replace the wooden parts by metal.