USU engineering students work in tandem to build bike for disabled people
A team of Utah State University engineering students helped develop a bike for disabled people. The bike, which is called Tandemonium, is appropriately named not only because it is a tandem bike, but also because it was built and designed in tandem with three partners: Common Ground, which is a recreational program dedicated to giving people with disabilities the chance to get outdoors, Icon Fitness and Utah State University’s mechanical engineering program.
It all started by chance one day at Willow Park. Kurt Finlayson, an engineer for Icon Fitness, said he noticed a group of Common Ground participants cycling around the park. Finlayson was fascinated by the the unique engineering of bikes for people with disabilities because he worked on a similar bike project when he was studying at the University of Utah. That’s when Finlayson and another Icon Fitness engineer, Keith Taylor, struck up a conversation with Common Ground’s program director, Bryce Patten.
Patten said he was concerned about the design of the bikes Common Ground was using because they were too light, would tip over around quick turns, were nearly inaccessible for people in wheelchairs and needed regular maintenance. Patten asked the Icon engineers if they could build Common Ground a better bike. Finlayson said it sounded like a great engineering project, but he was pretty swamped at work, so he suggested another idea.
“I have this crazy idea in my head and it just popped in 15 seconds ago,” Finlayson said. He told Patten Utah State’s mechanical engineering program is always looking for design projects and suggested they build a prototype for clients. Patten was in and that was when the partnership was born.
Eight students created Tandemonium as part of the mechanical engineering senior design program, which requires students to design a product and deliver it as a prototype, said Rees Fullmer, the professor of the class. The students primarily designed and built the first iteration of the bike and Icon gave them engineering advice.
“The students sometimes didn’t pay attention to the advice from the expert designers from Icon, so there were some mistakes made in the process,” Fullmer said. “But we consider mistakes to be a part of the learning process.”
The senior project development program is a two-semester class. The first semester, the students design their projects. During the second semester, they build it. The students get a chance to negotiate with the client about how to build a project.
Tandemonium was funded in part by Icon Fitness and the university. The National Science Foundation also donated a grant to the mechanical engineering program a few years ago to fund engineering projects for disabled people, said Dixon Nielson, the research developer for the engineering department.
“Over the course of about four or five years, we have done about 15 projects that are related to helping people with disabilities,” he said.
The students finished their prototype at the end of Fall semester, but the bike still needed to be tweaked to meet Patten’s initial specifications. Icon Fitness then picked up the project to put the last touches on the bike, which were mostly made by intern and mechanical engineering senior at the time David Wrobel.
When the bike was finished, Utah State and Icon presented it to Common Ground.
“Icon was wonderful to work with. They donated so much time and effort to this project to get this bike off of the ground,” Patten said. “Needless to say, the bike is much better suited for Common Ground’s clients.”
Elizabeth Graves is the receptionist at Common Ground and she has Spina Bifida, so she’s unable to ride traditional bikes.
“When I grew out of my little pink lady, I grew out of bikes permanently,” she said. “You can’t ride a pink lady when you are 37.”
She said the Tandemonium bike is perfect because she can easily sit down, swing her legs over and get on.
“The only adjustments I have to make now on the bike is because I was so short,” she said.
Patten was satisfied with the result.
“It is an awesome bike,” he said. “It is going to bring a lot of smiles to a lot of people.”