Vanessa's Bike

In the second unit of the course Design and Engineering we studied gear ratios, the power rule, area, volume, slopes, derivatives, potential energy and kinetic energy. We also learned about the parts of a bike, types of bikes and what impact they have on the rider. All of these concepts are hard in their own way, but I was able to pull through with extra help. We focused a lot on bikes because this course is about innovating, meaning that we are going to innovate bikes. The FE's that we had like going to the bike shop, Dyson and Alan were very helpful because we not only learned about bikes, but we learned some history of it, how to make things and the process of building something new. For our action project we worked in partners, and were assigned a person who bikes everyday and that needs a new bike. I got Vanessa who takes her brother every morning to a daycare before going to school. We needed to innovate a bike that fits her needs and make a prototype of it. During this project I had difficulty making the prototype and I learned pre-calculus. If you want to know more about this awesome bike please look down below for more details about it.

KIS & TS. Sketch. 2015

KIS & TS. Vanessa's bike. 2015.

In this unit we studied the wheel in motion, what energy it creates before and after (potential energy and kinetic energy), ratios, velocity, mass, weight, speed and the formulas that go with them. The purpose of this project is to innovate or create a whole new bike for someone. We were assigned people and we got Vanessa.Vanessa is a 17 year old, she lives by the United Center and she bikes 4 miles to school. Everyday when she goes to school she has to drop off her baby brother at a daycare then she goes to school. She takes roads under the train so it’s loud, there are many potholes and she leaves her bike in front of her house locked to a pole because she doesn’t have space to put it in. I am proud of our final design; it meets Vanessa's needs and had some cool upgrades that we added. In the process of making this project I learned that a bike’s frame doesn't have to be traditional, it can be any shape but it just needs to be stable, hold things together and distribute the weight evenly. Also technology is being included into bikes which I didn’t know, but I like. Also the aerodynamic bikes are cool because it makes you gain more speed and the material it’s made out of is comfortable.

KIS & TS. Bike Structure. 2015

The bike that we created for Vanessa has a shield protector for the baby in the back and a comfortable seat. It has mountain bike tires for the potholes she goes through everyday. It has a thick wire inside the frame so it can lock between the bike and the pole so no one can steal it. It also has a basket in front for Vanessa's book bag or anything else. It provides a gel seat and gel handles for the long bike ride and it has three different ways she can grab the handlebar so she can accommodate to however her hands feel. From the interview I conducted my friend said “Bullhorn handles are the most effective but many say drop handles look the best.” Our bike also has a soundproof shield for her baby brother when they ride under the tracks. Vanessa should trust our design because it’s modern, it helps her in her daily routine and it will make her life easier so she can focus on important things. Getting to the math behind a bicycle, Vanessa takes 23 minutes to get to school. Vanesa would take 10.43mph (miles per hour) and 4.66 mps (meters per second). The wheel’s diameter is 28 in. and the circumference of the wheel is 87.92 in. The wheel will rotate 2882 times during her journey and the model that we built is 14 times smaller than an actual bike. For the gears the bike has a small cog in back and big cog in in front because that way she can decide at what speed she wants to go in order to get a smooth ride and the gear ratio is 1:2, there is 30 teeth in the small gear and 60 teeth in the big gear. In terms of energy Vanessa has more potential energy when she is on top of a hill and has more kinetic energy when she goes down a hill. In the process of innovating it was really hard to come up with a way to make the loud train noises go away when a train passes because we didn’t want to transform the bike into a car so I decided that Vanessa can handle the noise but her baby brother can’t because babies have sensitive ears. We created a sound-proof shield around the baby's seat so he doesn’t hear the noises and it protects him.

KIS & TS.Over view. 2015.