In my experience, adding more people to the creative process simply adds more problems. The Cal Poly Bike Builders club may have proven me wrong. Their steel framed downhill bike is so far, my favorite from the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.
My first compliment is that the team designed the bike with relatively slender tube diameters. Steel's density is too great to allow for excess in the name of fashion. Modern builders who have grown up with fat-aluminum or carbon pipes typically overbuild their frames because they "look right." I also liked the box section swingarm reinforcements. I would have gone even lighter, but the concept is well executed. The design is intelligent and the team didn't fall prey to the steel-is-real idealism. They used aluminum in places, like the rocker arms, where steel simply isn't the right choice.
Chris Fedor, the team's manufacturing point man, credited project leader Shaw Hughes for the DH bike concept. Fedor said they took on the hardest project that they believed the team could complete over the school year. The design was decided upon, and then ferreted out using
CAD and
FEA programs that you or I could only dream to afford.
The build was then divided among the club, who acted as subcontractors on the job. They split up, programmed CNC machines, fabricated the bits and, ultimately, everything fell together when the time came for welding and assembly. No doubt there were a few glitches along the way, but you'd never know it by looking at the completed bike. Well done, Cal Poly Bike Builders.
I didn't get to work on anything as interesting when I was at uni outside of choosing a dissertation I was interested in.
I feel that some students really miss out on any practical side of engineering, however 'simple' and it can lead to engineers designing products that are difficult / impossible to manufacture as they lack awareness of what is / isn't possible.
i wonder if anyone will adopt this approach - unless Shimano or some one has already cornered the patent
Believe me I support your opinion that engineers miss some stuff. But I can imagine fitting a torque wrench in somewhere being way down the list of importance compared to some bonuses of design that tight spaces allow.
Maybe you’re an engineer?
Friendly advice.. Please twirl the tail of that safety wire! I'm an aircraft mechanic with many holes in my hand because of those tails... If it pops out you'll see what I mean
Even better if your a student, free software for learning (just need a student account from any "real" school, any grade level): www.autodesk.com/education/home
Congratulations to the kids, but remember there are some unsung heroes providing that education. It's gotta be tough to make the choice to teach there when your peers are getting paid significantly more. Kudos to their professors!
I designed a trials bike frame for my senior project and did stress analysis but never fabricated it. My teammates both dropped out senior year so I was solo.
I assume they used solid works with the now integrated FEA module. Pretty standard stuff these days that I’d wager more than a few of us have readily available.
Face & Firebreak Trail edit
www.pinkbike.com/news/must-watch-video-kooks-only-the-privateer-story-of-dsendit-racing.html
Hopefully it's not toooooo heavy
In the close up pic, it looks like these peds are offset in the standard manner, with the spindle residing to the rear of center on the platform, so nothing unusual or atypical here. The common explanations I've heard for the design are to get more of your foot over the spindle while keeping the ball of the foot in the center of the platform, and to reduce the tendency of the pedal to roll under the foot when loaded in a front/back manner.
The student license allows them do pretty much anything they want but the files they create aren't compatible with the commercial versions and they're strictly prohibited to use it for anything commercial.
@vinay: Yeah Altium (on the EE side) does the exact same thing, they even have a free designer but it can only save to the cloud and it's own file format. Either way, if you are creative/computer savvy enough to teach yourself how to design a bike (or circuit board) on your own, chances are you can also find a way to get the top end software without paying the "full price". Just make sure if you are actually going to sell a product that you have your license in order.
....nice looking bike.
I'm just kidding guys. Lighten up a bit.