I Want to Ride my Bicycle! I Want to Ride my Bike!

Welcome to the final Action Project for my first STEAM term of Junior year - Design and Engineering. For one of my favorite FE's, we visited Working Bikes - a shop that recycles used bikes. Some are repaired and sold on the floor, but many are donated to developing countries around the world. We helped prepare a shipment of bikes for delivery to Jordan. In class, we learned about gears, gear ratios, circles and ellipses, etc. For this action project, my entire class was split into groups of two. I was paired up with JC. Using empathy, we were to design a bike for a persona assigned to us. The first thing we did was split up the different tasks in order to work through the project. JC and I had to consider all of the needs and obstacles of our assigned persona in order to design the perfect bike. Now, here we are, a complete action project about a bike that hasn't been invented for a kid who doesn't exist! Ha ha. My partner and I worked really hard and tried to be as thoughtful as possible to design this bike. I hope you enjoy!
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Our Persona and Bike

Our persona, Vishwanath, is a 13 year-old boy in Mumbai, India who lives about 1.75 miles away from school. He always needs to watch out for potholes, floods, and people who could steal his bike. Through analyzing his relationship with his bike, my partner and I came up with a few features we believe to be Vishwanath’s perfect bike. Since Vishwanath is 13 years old and still growing, he needs standard 26 inch wheels, so the bike won’t be too tall for him to ride and still give him room to grow. Along with the hazards he may come across, starting with the potholes, we added a 1:3 single speed gear ratio and disc brakes for both speed and safety while riding. These two features combined allow him to ride at a speed that gives him enough time to react to certain scenarios and stop the bike almost immediately when he pulls the brake levers. These brakes will be helpful for times when he quickly comes across a new hazard, like a flooded roadway or pothole, allowing him to stop before he accidentally rides into it. In addition, disc brakes do not need to be replaced as regularly as rubber pad brakes. Another design feature we added for flooding is higher positioned bike pedals. This will keep Vishwanath from having to push his pedals through water, slowing him down. The bike is painted to reduce the possibility of rusting, and has a rubber belt “chain,” as opposed to a metal one, that is immune to rust and easier to maintain and replace.

Calculations

The diameter for our bike wheels are 26in. If we divide that by 2, we get a radius of 13in. To get the circumference of our wheels, we must multiply π by 2 and multiply that with our radius, 13in. After that, we find our wheel circumference to be 81.68in.

Our persona lives 1.75mi away from his school. His average speed is 11.7mph, or 5.23mps in other words. To calculate the total amount of wheel rotations that occur during his daily trip to school, we must first take the distance that is need to travel, 1.75mi, and convert it into centimeters by multiplying it by 160934.4. This gives us 281635.2cm. The final step to calculate our total number of wheel rotations is to divide the distance in centimeters by the wheel circumference, which gives us 3,448.03 full wheel rotations.

The mass of our persona and the bike combined is around 60kg. The last thing we are missing is their average kinetic energy. First, we must divide their total mass in half. Then, we take their velocity in meters per second, which is 5.23mps, and square it. The last thing we must do is multiply the mass that was cut in half and the squared velocity together. This gives us their average kinetic energy of 465.26j.

Models

My partner and I were assigned to make a physical 3D model of our bike and persona riding it in class. We made the bike out of foam core and made the rider out of pipe cleaners, using scotch tape to keep him together. In the first image is a background of terrain that was drawn by my partner, JC, to give you guys a visual depiction of the terrain our persona rides his bike through.




Drawings



This is a labeled sketch of our bike by my partner, JC. This is supposed to show what some of the features we made would most likely look like on the bike. Each label has an arrow pointing towards what they are talking about so you don't get confused.


This image was made, digitally, by me. It is supposed to be just like my partner's sketch, but it has a few differences I think you can spot that were done on my part, like the angled bike seat - making it easier for Vishwantha to reach his pedals.

In conclusion, we analyzed and anticipated Vishwanath's background for what WE think he needs in a bike. Even though Vishwantha is a persona, it would have been nice to know exactly what he needs through talking face-to-face with him. Not being able to speak with your client directly has an impact on the amount of empathy you use in the design process. We were given Vishwanath's background and used empathy off of that, but we still didn't get to hear his voice and find out what was most important to him. Empathy is a very important piece of the design process. Connecting with people in person allows you to see their emotional expressions and reactions. Although we had a good description of Vishwantha's needs and obstacles, it would have been ideal to hear from him directly. I really enjoyed this term of Design and Engineering, and I hope the upcoming Juniors will, too.

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