Challenge: The UMD Sustainability Department has assembled a sustainability bike that they hope to bring around campus to promote sustainability initiatives to students. The bike contains a solar panel that allows students to charge their laptop battery. They asked TW to design and develop an attachment to support the solar panel onto the bike. Some requirements for the holder include collapsible underneath the bike’s storage, assembly by one person, and variable rotation.
Solution: Through many prototyping phases, the TW Design Team created a two-arm sliding design with cross member supports. The design is capable of holding the solar panel at specific angles of 90 degrees, 45 degrees, and 0 degrees. And all parts are collapsible in order to fit within the bike’s storage compartment. The final design was manufactured in coordination with a variety of different Terrapin Works labs. The structural members of the holder were cut by the TW woodshop, while the geometry parts were made from laser-cut wood in the AFL. The frame brackets and cross member gussets were printed on FDM printers in the Fabrication Farm. And finally, the frame brackets were installed to the bike frame in the IFL.
Technology Types: Laser Cutting/Engraving, Fused-Deposition-Modeling (FDM)
Equipment: Epilog Laser Fusion M2, Prusa i3 MK3S+
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