Brainstorming Session- 10/24

October 24, 2013

We considered the current design:

Our original brainstorm yielded three designs that seemed to be more improvements to the current design than revolutionary ideas.

Idea #1: No more pipes! Eliminating the top parts of metal, reducing the chance of hitting your heel while pedaling, and also allowing for a great range of width.

Idea #2: Center the wheel. Align the bike stand with the center of the wheel instead of the brackets.

Idea #3: Adjustable base. Make a shower rod-type adjustable base that can extend up to 5 more inches.

We made a Pugh chart to determine how each idea measured up the current design:

We had originally conceptualized three designs, but Amy suggested we brainstorm 50-100 more. We then spent 30 minutes brainstorming and came up with 10 designs, some of which echoed ideas we had seen in our research.

We decided to consider:

-Improved balance

-Ensured stability

-Accommodating to different bike sizes

-Easy to build without a welding gun

-Easy to transport

-Intuitiveness to use

During our brainstorming session we came up with the following designs:

The "holding bikeback" supports the seat instead of the brackets or hubs.

 

This design lifts the front part of the bike, which Amy nixed.

Many bike stores sell metal cylinders that attach to the hub of bike wheels to slide down rails.

The "field goal" stands would support the brackets.

This design consists of adding an extra kick-stand type rod.

We were thinking of ways to accommodate the different sizes of hex bolts in bike hubs. This design would work, if we could figure out a way to make the design accurately multiple times.

The "Latch it on" design catches the hub of the wheel.

Contrary to most of our other designs, the "suspension" design would dangle the back wheel instead of lifting.

The "cylinder" is a characteristic that would support the weight of the bike, thus taking some of the weight off the brackets/wheel hubs.

This cylinder could accommodate different bike sizes.

This is a rather silly design that lifts the bike up in the middle- effectively lifting the entire bike off the ground.

This design also accommodates for different bolts on the bike wheel hub.

Many of our designs revolved around the idea of supporting the bike by the hub instead of the side brackets, but when we looked at the bikes we noticed the gears and wires around the hub might prevent a mechanism from supporting the hub from the bottom.

The gear mechanism prevents accessing the hub from the bottom.

We need to choose a design by Monday (10/28); I hope we can!