Community Based Production
As a budding electric bike designer, I try to keep up with trends on what’s hot and the latest technology. Since I am in engineering school, keeping up on the latest technologies is easy. However, I go to school out of state and this disconnects me from my community back home. So I knew I needed to touch base with someone who was more connected to their local community.
As a budding electric bike designer, I try to keep up with trends on what’s hot and the latest technology. Since I am in engineering school, keeping up on the latest technologies is easy.
However, I go to school out of state and this disconnects me from my community back home. So I knew I needed to touch base with someone who was more connected to their local community. Luckily, during the Green For All Fellowship training, I met Itef Vita. He’s an all round talented artist. I asked him to sketch out what he would want the bike to look like. We talked about different designs. He did a few sketches. It was inspiring. I also talked to different bike designers and met with other Green For All Fellows involved in the scraper bike movement.
I took all the ideas and blended them together to develop a 3D model of the bike. Everyone I spoke with will see elements of their input:
Ideally, I’d like to meet with more hip-hop artists around the country and get their feedback. For now, I’m going to make this design as open as possible. In other words, I’ll leave it up to the people to add their own flavor to it (another idea from a Fellow. Big Ups to Tanya!).
Since the aesthetic design has now been finalized, the next step is to do the engineering. This involves switching from art mode to math and science mode. I have to make sure the bike will physically work. I have to make sure the battery gives enough juice to get you around and bump your jams at the same time.
Stay tuned.
