The Silver Bullet bicycle

I am studying a course on Design and Engineering, and this is my last Action Project. The purpose of this Action Project is to create the ideal bicycle for a Chicago commuter. There are some specific design elements, such as the gear ratios and safety features that can differ depending on the user, and I had to thoroughly study my user in order to deliver to her the best commuting bike that will satisfy all of her needs.

In this unit I learned a ton! We learned about wheels; how they have permitted a better form of transportation, and thus united countries and whole cultures. Later we focused on a specific vehicle: the bicycle. Bicycles share with us many liberating possibilities, for example they permit us to cover 3 functions: We can move from one place to another easily, while respecting nature and exercising our bodies.  I also learned about all the different ways that wheels are used around the globe, and of how they really work. I thoroughly studied the wheel and axle, the pulley, and about gears. Later through the unit, we started concentrating more on bicycles. From researching modern bikes I learned that it there are very interesting and innovative designs which keep a bike safe and locked, for example having the handlebar be a lock as well. I also learned that there are other cleaner and better designs of bike chains, which actually don’t use chains at all but rather carbon and plastic. These bike chains don’t need lubrication, and are also silent when riding.

I interviewed a friend of my dad’s called Chris Haskell and I found the way he described how to choose a good saddle for a bike very interesting. He said that “The wings of the saddle have to meet you on your sit bones” . He also gave an example of why saddles need to be hard, where he asked me to “Imagine rubbing your fingers across a smooth surface, like a piece of tile. You can rub your fingers across a piece of tile for a long time and your fingers will not get hot. But if you get your fingers and you rub them across your sheet on your bed, it doesn’t take very long before your fingers get very hot. This is because soft material creates more friction. This is why your saddle needs to be hard.” More friction equals more work for the same speed.

Going back to my Action Project, I designed my bike for a specific user/commuter. Her name is Malia. She is 15 years old, and lives in Logan Square Chicago. She lives 5 miles away from school, and her road to school is filled with access ramps and potholes. She needs a bike with several gear ratios, that will help her not get tired in her 5 mile ride, that will make her feel comfortable even when going up and down access ramps and over potholes, and that will provide extra space for her to carry groceries, school books, and lunch box.

Here is a map of her approximate route:

According to Google maps, it will take her approximately 30 minutes to get to school everyday. Her average speed on her commute will be of about 10 miles per hour, or 4.4704 meters per second.

Malia is looking for an easy, comfortable ride to school and back home. However, if she for some reason is in a hurry, she would like to go faster. So she would prefer a mid-sized cog in the front (39 teeth), and three different-sized cogs in the back (15 teeth, 16 teeth, and 17 teeth).  This way she could use the 17 teeth cog to go up the ramps at the subway stations, the 15 teeth cog to reach high speeds on the road and down slopes, and the 16 teeth cog to cruise. I chose only 3 different gear ratios so that it would be simple for Malia to use, yet productive, fulfilling all of her needs. I chose these specific cog sizes for Malia, her approximate weight being 125 pounds and her preferred travel speed being roughly 18 km/h on her mostly flat journey.

The gear ratios for these sizes would be:

15 teeth 2.6/1

16 teeth 2.4/1

17 teeth 2.3/1

These are exactly the same sizes as the 3 middle gears of the small front gear of the Shimano Sora Gear Shifting  System.

MY BIKE

My bike is a hybrid between a road and a mountain bike, customized for the commuting needs of my user. It has a light aluminium body, with suspension forks on the front wheel, and thin wheels that are both fast and resistant. Similar to the Denny Bike, it comes with an integrated removable handlebar locking system, as well as racks with a flexible storage system in the front AND back, as part of the frame. It also has a fully-integrated turn signal, head and brake lights system, with its turn signals activating with only the touch of a button (pushing the brake handles out instead of in; they turn off with clicking again)  for safety. This is very important, given that she often rides her bike back home at night. My bike includes a removable battery for charging the lighting system, as well as a minimal fender that removes water from the tire itself. Finally, it also comes with a gear shifting system, with the 3 different speeds that Malia will need for her commute. The radius of my bike’s wheels is  14.5 inches long, and its diameter 31 inches.

My bike is better than the competition, because with its light and resistant wheels, Malia won’t have to worry about getting late to school or work ever again. The wheels, along with the different gear speeds, allow the user to reach high speeds with less work than usual.The flexible storage system in the front and back of the bike that are part of the frame itself also allow you to take both big and small delicate objects on your trip with safety. Also, its light suspension forks on the front wheel permit you to have a smooth ride through the usual potholes and ramps in the city. My bike’s unique locking system allows Malia not to worry about her bike’s safety at school, the library or the grocery shop. My bike would demonstrate Potential Energy when at the top of a hill, and Kinetic Energy when Malia is riding the bike to school, to the food market, or back home.

Malia, my user, lives 5 miles away from school, and will have to travel that distance and back every week day. She will have to go on the elevated 606 trail and Milwaukee Ave. This means that she will have to go up and down access ramps, and she will encounter potholes on the Avenues; she also goes grocery shopping on her way back to school. My bike’s lightness and gear-shifting system reduces the amount of force needed to travel her 10 daily miles, including going up and down access ramps. Also, potholes won’t be a problem thanks to the suspension forks on the front wheel. While she is at school and shopping, she can use the bikes handlebar self integrated locking system to keep it safe from someone stealing it. Also, the flexible storage system in the front and back of the bike that are part of the frame will allow her to ride comfortably back home with her groceries. She also needs to have a safe trip back home after school, sometimes at night. Because of this, my bike comes with a fully-integrated, turn signals, head and brake lights system, with its turn signals activating with only the touch of a button, so that cars and other commuters may see her. Given that the circumference of the wheels of my bike is 91.1 inches., they will rotate a total of  8832.84 times before she gets to her destination.

When making my bike I kept in mind all of  Malia’s needs, as well as her age and the distance she will be traveling every day. I also kept in mind all of the things I learned about wheels, axles, pulleys and gears in my Internal Investigation, as well as all of the personal experiences riding bikes that my interviewee shared with me, and the things that he had learned of over time that he thought made his bike experience more productive. Malia should trust in my design because the accessories it features satisfy all of her needs.

One of the obstacles that I ran into when making this Project was that I didn’t (and still don’t) have any experience commuting with a bike. Commuting with bikes is not really part of the culture here in Ecuador. This is probably because it is very hot and humid all year long and people don’t want to get to work sweaty! Also, there are no good bike paths in the city where I live (Guayaquil), and drivers do not take bicycles into consideration. So this forced me to really try to get into the mind of my interviewee, Chris Haskell, who is a faithful commuter and biker who rides approximately 200 miles per week. Another obstacle that I ran into was that most of the math that I learned in order to achieve this project was very new and quite hard for me! But with the help of Khan Academy, I understood much faster than usual.

I am proud of all of the knowledge that this unit has gifted me. One of the things that I learned which I value most is that I was able to realize, by studying different bike organizations, how much a bike can really help someone. In rural communities for many people, bikes are essential in their everyday tasks! This motivated me a lot to learn more about how I can improve bikes and make them more accessible.

Works Cited:

Denny Bike official website http://www.dennybike.com/#about

My interview with Chris Haskell on the phone, October 2016

La Limpieza Podemos Alcanzar

I am Studying a course about Rhetoric, and this is my third Action Project. It consists of making a piece of art to address a social issue that is important to me. I decided to make a song, which addresses the issue of the lack of cleanliness in my town, Chongón,Ecuador. The name of my song is “La Limpieza Podemos Alcanzar” (We Can Achieve Cleanliness). It is a “Cumbia” song, which is a Latin American rhythm that is popular in  Chongón.

There is a certain neighborhood inside  Chongón called San Geronimo 2, which I visit a lot given that I have a children’s class there once a week, in which I teach kids from 6 to 8 years old about spirituality and values.I have started to realize that there are some problems that the neighborhood has that the locals have never really set their mind on changing because they may seem quite unimportant. However, I have also started to realize that these unattended problems affect not only the children in my class, but the whole neighborhood in general! So I decided to break the sound barrier on one of the problems that I feel is affecting San Geronimo 2 the most: the lack of cleanliness.

My thesis statement

I made my song as a “Cumbia” so that it would attract the locals of San Geronimo 2, and I wrote simple lyrics so that it would be easy for people to sing. My goal in making this song is so that the locals of San Geronimo 2 may open their eyes to this problem, and realize that it is affecting them both emotionally and economically, so that they may get together and work towards reversing this problem.

Here is a recording of the song I made:

Here are the lyrics of the song:

La Limpieza Podemos Alcanzar

Al caminar por mi bello barrio
Gente amable sonrie con fulgor
Niños jugando en el parque veo
Madres y padres juntos van tras ellos

Pero el agua en las calles muy sucia está
Y los niños jugando se mojan sin parar
Debemos limpiarlas pa’ encontrar sanidad
(Pues) Los niños se enferman y para el doctor no hay más

CHORUS
El fuego de la unidad
Se enciende en todos al cantar
La limpieza podemos alcanzar 
Pero todos debemos apoyar

Mi barrio ahora más limpio está 
Y el resultado alegra a los demás
Niños más sanos juegan juntos sin temor
Padres sin la más mínima preocupación

Pero las construcciones en las calles siempre están
Y el polvo que crean a los pulmones van 
Debemos limpiarlas pa’ encontrar sanidad
(Pues) Los niños se enferman y para el doctor no hay más

CHORUS
El fuego de la unidad 
Se enciende en todos al cantar
La limpieza podemos alcanzar 
Pero todos debemos apoyar (Bis)

Here is a rough English translation of the song:

We can achieve cleanliness

While I walk through my beautiful neighborhood

Kind people smile with fervor 

I see kids playing in the park

Mothers and fathers together looking after them.

But the water in the streets is very dirty

And the kids playing fall on them

We need to clean the streets to achieve sanity

Because the kids are getting sick and there is no money for the doctor.

CHORUS

The fire of unity

Lightens in us all as we sing

We can achieve cleanliness

But we must all give a hand

My neighborhood is now much cleaner

And this makes everyone happy

The kids play with no fear 

Parents with no worry

But there is always constructions in the roads

And the dust they create go directly to the lungs

We must clean them to achieve sanity

Because the kids are getting sick and there is no money for the doctor.

CHORUS

The fire of unity

Lightens in us all as we sing

We can achieve cleanliness

But we must all give a hand (BIS)

My Artist Statement

Here are some things I have observed in San Geronimo 2:

• My kids often come with no shoes or no shirts to my children’s class.
• The streets of San Geronimo 2 have been in “repair” for the last 6 months. The work is very slow given that workers don’t get paid enough and on time. This creates a lot of dust, and this brings diseases.
• Much, if not most of the wastewater that comes from the houses of San Geronimo 2 empties out into the street. San Geronimo 2 is situated on flat ground, and the wastewater accumulates and becomes the focus of mosquitoes that can carry a variety of diseases. 
• The wastewater accumulated in the streets makes the whole town smell terrible, and children that play in the street often fall and get wet with this water. This also brings diseases.

“Breaking the sound barrier” means To bring to light problems/facts that go unheard, which often turn out to be very important. With that said, I believe that my song breaks the sound barrier because it talks specifically about two of these facts: the wastewater and dust that accumulates in the streets and their consequences. This is a topic that no one talks about or pays attention to in general in San Geronimo. I decided to start the song by naming all of the good things that San Geronimo 2 has to share, and later I introduce the wastewater problem and its consequences. Then the chorus says that the solution to these problems can be reached if we decide to unite and help clean our neighborhood. Next, it talks about how I see San Geronimo 2 better already, but that the dust from the street repairs is accumulating and affecting us all physically and emotionally. And finally, I repeat the chorus twice.

I used a metaphor to describe unity as a “fire” that lights in all of our hearts when working in harmony towards the improvement of our neighborhood. I also used rhymes throughout the whole song to make it sound much more attractive and easier to sing.

With this song I hope to make the people of San Geronimo 2 see that their neighborhood is full of beautiful people and also potentially a beautiful place, and it is because of this that they should work together to make it better yet. I also hope that they may see that they are presently living the consequences of the lack of cleanliness, and it is bringing them much grief and economic depression. I will share this song with the president of the neighborhood. I will suggest that he organize a cleaning campaign and offer to invite the children from my class to participate. I will also sing the song with the children from my class.