Project Overview
This was our capstone project for our senior engineering design course. The goal of this project was to redesign an existing product, and we chose to redesign a bike lock. It was a product we were all quite familiar with, being on a college campus, and one where we hadn’t seen much change. Additionally, we wanted to address the issue of bike theft, which is quite common on college campuses. After conducting our market and user research, we found two main pain points:
Most of the bike locks on the market made a trade-off between security and portability. The more secure bike locks were bulkier and more inconvenient to carry around, especially while riding a bike, while the lightweight, easily carried locks were less secure, and people wanted a lock that was both secure and easily carried.
Along with bike theft, bike accessories, such as lights, were also frequently stolen and harder to secure.
In order to address these issues, our final concept combined a traditional U-lock with the front and rear bike lights. By doing so, we took what was generally considered the most secure type of bike lock, a U-lock, and made it easier to carry while riding since it now had secure mounting points as the bike’s front and rear lights. Plus, with the lights integrated into the lock, when you locked up your bike, you were now also locking up your lights. We made a prototype of our concept for our course presentation showcase where we won the award for “Best Prototype”.
Role & Responsibilities
Product analysis, user and market research, concept creation, experience design, 3D modeling and rendering, mechanical analysis, prototyping
Carnegie Mellon University
Engineering Design II
Spring 2014
Team: Ryan Chang, Rachel Chow, Jeremy Jiang, Melissa Mann, Alex Muñoz
