Category: Student Design

  • Bicycle Lock Dock and other locking concepts

    Bicycle Lock Dock and other locking concepts

    According to industrial designer Douglas Schaller, “the bicycle theft industry is at least $393 million annually in the United States and the crime costs Americans between $800 and $1 billion.”  That problem was the reason for the Bicycle Lock Dock, a 2009 team student design project led by Schaller along with Cassie Tweed, Seung Kim, Mike…

  • KETTLER eMotion electric bike concept

    KETTLER eMotion electric bike concept

    I mentioned a project from Behance yesterday, so I will follow up with one more today.  The eMotion electric bike concept shown here was designed by University of Wuppertal students Stefan Reichert, Sven Schulte-Tillmann, and Arina Nechaeva in collaboration with the German bike manufacturer KETTLER. The brief for the project was simple- “develop the future…

  • AeroVelo’s human powered helicopter project

    AeroVelo’s human powered helicopter project

    Late last year, I mentioned the University of Toronto Human Powered Vehicle Team’s Vortex HPV, which they raced at the World Human Powered Speed Championships in Battle Mountain, Nevada. This year, the team from Toronto has a more ambitious project- the world’s first successful human powered helicopter. Team member Victor Ragusila explains that they are…

  • Three student design projects

    Three student design projects

    Richard Heath is an industrial design intern in Sydney, Australia.  He is attempting to design an alternative to e-bikes currently on the market and has started a blog to document his development process. He is in the early conceptual sketching stage right now, but it should be fun to follow his blog to see how…

  • 2012 IBDC winners from Taipei

    2012 IBDC winners from Taipei

    The winners of the 16th annual International Bicycle Design Competition (IBDC) were announced at the Taipei Cycle Show last week. From over 800 total entries and 20 finalists, Taiwanese designer Larry Chen took the Gold award this year for his Velocity electric bike design.  The pedal assist city bike features a “power core” consisting of…

  • Starck’s town bike and Teams Design’s ntb

    Starck’s town bike and Teams Design’s ntb

    I mentioned in an earlier post that Philippe Starck had been invited by the City of Bordeaux, France to design “the town bike of the future”. He recently unveiled his PIBAL concept bike, which you can see in the attached rendering. If I understand correctly, the idea behind the platform on the step-through frame is…

  • A couple of folding bike concepts

    A couple of folding bike concepts

    For his thesis project at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, Industrial Design graduate student Ramon Hung designed the Velo Chic folding bike, which is specifically aimed toward women living in urban areas. On his portfolio site, Raymon points out that: “In America, women comprise only 25% of bicycle riders. The main factor that…

  • Carbon manufacturing at TIME and assorted bike links

    Carbon manufacturing at TIME and assorted bike links

    I am WAY overloaded with projects at the moment, so the links and topics that I have been meaning to post lately have been backing up. I won’t get to them all today, but I want to take a quick break from the madness and quickly pass along a few of them. Core77 posted an…

  • Halloween bikes

    Halloween bikes

    “Frankentrike” by Ted Sliwinski is just one of the bikes currently featured in an exhibition at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit. Sliwinski points out that, “In true Detroit style it is made of junk, old bike frames and part of the elevator at OmniCorpDetroit. However, it works and it works well.” If…

  • Cadence prosthetic and pedal for amputee cyclists

    Cadence prosthetic and pedal for amputee cyclists

    The US winner of the James Dyson Awards has been announced. Cadence, by Art Center College of Design student Seth Astle, is a prosthetic limb and pedal system that makes cycling more accessible for below-the-knee amputees. It offers a full range of motion, and better efficiency than traditional prosthetic limbs. The Cadence prosthetic “has an…

  • Project Aura wheel lighting system

    Project Aura wheel lighting system

    According to the Core 77 blog, “Project Aura is a bicycle lighting system designed to address the issue of nighttime urban bike commuting.” The design, by Ethan Frier and Jonathan Ota of Carnegie Mellon University, was recently chosen as the student winner in the Transportation category of this year’s Core77 Design Awards. You can read…

  • Two very similar plywood bike concepts

    Two very similar plywood bike concepts

    Five or six years ago while looking through a book of classic bent plywood chair designs, I sketched out a bike frame inspired by the work of Charles and Ray Eames, Alvar Aalto, and others. I had seen many plywood bike frames in the past, but none of them took advantage of the flexibility that…