Bike Design Class

I am retired, but several years ago, I started a bike design class at
CALPOLY SLO. Each student invents, designs, engineers, prototypes and
tests a bike that has never been seen before. I like to go up and see
how the students do every year.


Friday was the demonstration day for the class. I
put a few photos of the student built bikes at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~wm.patterson/id4.html ...

For those interested in weird bikes.


--
See bikes at: http://home.earthlink.net/~wm.patterson/index.html

See bikes and the first human powered helicopter at:

http://www.calpoly.edu/~wpatters/

Reply to

I'm not sure what I like about this post better. The fact that someone
in America is offering a course in bicycle engineering, or that there
are actually students signing up for it!

Bravo (to both)!

- -

Chris Zacho ~ "Your Friendly Neighborhood Wheelman"

"May you have the winds at your back,
And a really low gear for the hills!"

Chris'Z Corner
http://www.geocities.com/czcorner

Chris Zacho The Wheelman wrote:

I'm not sure what I like about this post better. The fact that someone
in America is offering a course in bicycle engineering, or that there
are actually students signing up for it!

Bravo (to both)!

- -

Chris Zacho ~ "Your Friendly Neighborhood Wheelman"

The powers won't let the class be taught more than once a year.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be any seniors to take the other tech electives.

I don't think it's so much about bikes, as it is about the full process
of making a new mechanism. Normally, engineers only get to work on one
part of the process. In this class they take it all the way to test. The
only step left out is the production phase.



--
See bikes at: http://home.earthlink.net/~wm.patterson/index.html

See bikes and the first human powered helicopter at:

http://www.calpoly.edu/~wpatters/

Reply to

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:33:37 +0000, Bill Patterson wrote:

Chris Zacho The Wheelman wrote:

I'm not sure what I like about this post better. The fact that someone
in America is offering a course in bicycle engineering, or that there
are actually students signing up for it!

Bravo (to both)!

The powers won't let the class be taught more than once a year.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be any seniors to take the other tech electives.

I don't think it's so much about bikes, as it is about the full process
of making a new mechanism. Normally, engineers only get to work on one
part of the process. In this class they take it all the way to test. The
only step left out is the production phase.

Bravo to you, and I echo Chris' thoughts.

One thing that really disturbed me about engineering school (Cal Poly
Pomona, BTW), was how few students had ever been interested in, let alone
involved in, making anything.

Matt O.

Bill Patterson wrote:
I am retired, but several years ago, I started a bike design class at
CALPOLY SLO. Each student invents, designs, engineers, prototypes and
tests a bike that has never been seen before. I like to go up and see
how the students do every year.


Friday was the demonstration day for the class. I
put a few photos of the student built bikes at:

http://home.earthlink.net/~wm.patterson/id4.html ...

For those interested in weird bikes.



Very, very cool! Question: What are the rules of the project? What
calculations/drawings must the submit? Where do the parts come from?
Do they have to work with some sort of budget?

I kind of wish I could do ME, but I think CE was the right choice.

\\paul
--
Paul M. Hobson
Georgia Institute of Technology
..:change the words to numbers
if you want to reply to me:.

In article , Paul Hobson
wrote:


Very, very cool! Question: What are the rules of the project? What
calculations/drawings must the submit? Where do the parts come from?
Do they have to work with some sort of budget?

The category of design notwithstanding, are the projects restricted to
two wheels?

(Chris Zacho "The Wheelman") wrote:

I'm not sure what I like about this post better. The fact that someone
in America is offering a course in bicycle engineering, or that there
are actually students signing up for it!

Bravo (to both)!

Just keep the builders of a few of those things away from a torch (or
even a CAD program). Most of 'em are pretty nice... but a couple are
downright scary looking. The "backwards bike" looks like a
spontaneous deconstruction waiting to happen.

But the designer DID save a lot of weight on the seat tube I guess...

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

Matt O'Toole writes:

I'm not sure what I like about this post better. The fact that
someone in America is offering a course in bicycle engineering, or
that there are actually students signing up for it!

Bravo (to both)!

The powers won't let the class be taught more than once a year.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be any seniors to take the other tech
electives.

I don't think it's so much about bikes, as it is about the full
process of making a new mechanism. Normally, engineers only get to
work on one part of the process. In this class they take it all the
way to test. The only step left out is the production phase.

Bravo to you, and I echo Chris' thoughts.

One thing that really disturbed me about engineering school (Cal
Poly Pomona, BTW), was how few students had ever been interested in,
let alone involved in, making anything.

I don't know where mechanical design engineers of the future are to
come from. I know no one who works on machinery, including engineers
who take the bicycles to the shop for repairs. Having never analyzed a
failure in their lives or tightened bolts on a machine, I can't imagine
them designing a piece of machinery optimized for manufacture,
assembly and possibly repair.

I always thought it would be a great project to teach a course in
mechanical design using the 1950's VW Beetle as a subject of
everything you can do wrong in car design. You'll notice that no one
makes use of any of the design concepts on which that car was built,
be that wheel suspension, chassis design, and most of all motor and
transmission. You can put your finger on almost any part of that car
and find a multitude of errors, ones that other car designs had
discarded before WWII.

It was partly on that car and earlier Fords that I discovered how many
terrible designs were in the cars of the day. Only through the highly
competitive market today and the multi million $'s in research by race
car teams do we have cars that don't break down all the time and don't
need a lube job every 10,000 miles or more.

Jobst Brandt

wrote:
snips



I don't know where mechanical design engineers of the future are to
come from. I know no one who works on machinery, including engineers
who take the bicycles to the shop for repairs. Having never analyzed a
failure in their lives or tightened bolts on a machine, I can't imagine
them designing a piece of machinery optimized for manufacture,
assembly and possibly repair.

Jobst Brandt

All of our students have welding and machining classes. The learn by
doing stuff seems to take.

I am always amazed at what the students could accomplish.


--
See bikes at: http://home.earthlink.net/~wm.patterson/index.html

See bikes and the first human powered helicopter at:

http://www.calpoly.edu/~wpatters/

Reply to

Mark Hickey wrote:

Just keep the builders of a few of those things away from a torch (or
even a CAD program). Most of 'em are pretty nice... but a couple are
downright scary looking. The "backwards bike" looks like a
spontaneous deconstruction waiting to happen.

Academics are in a different position than businessmen. Here is the best
place to fail and learn. In fact a failed design could still pass the
class. When that guy goes out in the world, he knows at least one thing
that won't work.

But the designer DID save a lot of weight on the seat tube I guess...

A couple of years ago we had one build a rear steer bike that could be
ridden. It's on that web site somewhere.

I suppose, it's the same process as riding a track bike backward.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame


--
See bikes at: http://home.earthlink.net/~wm.patterson/index.html

See bikes and the first human powered helicopter at:

http://www.calpoly.edu/~wpatters/

Reply to