Check out this amazing project by the IET WA Leadership Programme Team which promotes STEM and the IET during the open day of the four universities in Western Australia:  Curtin, Murdock, UWA and ECU. See how Kelly charged her mom's phone using the bike here



Team’s Process

Participating in the WA IET leadership programme presented us with a project that has never been attempted before. The team was faced with a challenge that had no clearly defined approach but had a single objective; to promote the IET to aspiring engineers on Universities around Western Australia. Initially, the project was oriented towards beating a World Record. However, after weeks of discussing world record ideas, the team decided to beat a world record using a self-powered bicycle that would charge the most electronic devices. With some advice from an IET senior committee member, Peta; we decided the best time and place to promote the IET would be on the University’s open days. 

We found the self-powered bicycle to be an interesting idea that would promote the vision, mission and values of the IET to the Universities. From this point on, we planned our design for the self-powered bicycle using guides and tutorial videos found online. Then we researched the costs of parts we will need such as the alternator and inverter. Finally, we assembled the bicycle with customised wooden supports that were designed to withstand the most enthusiastic riders.  



The Bike

The team designed the self-powered bicycle based on multiple guides and tutorial videos found on the internet. To keep costs low, we sourced parts like the alternator from private sellers on gumtree while the bicycle’s base and wooden supports were purchased from Bunnings. Overall, the most challenging part of the bicycle’s assembly was deciding how the supports will be fitted on the bike. Thankfully, with the help of an IET professional, we managed to come up with a design for the wooden supports that resembled an equilateral triangle. Using this design allowed the forces from the rider’s weight, to be distributed evenly onto the base which ensures the bike’s stability and resilience. 



Open Day

After the bicycle’s assembly was completed, it was time to present our project to keen onlookers on open day. Our bicycle’s simple yet quirky design drew the attention of the very young and old alike. Many passer-by’s were eager to jump on our bicycle to see how much they would be able to charge their phones. Some desperately needed that extra bit of charge to revive their depleted mobiles while others simply wanted to see if it worked! At ECU’s open day, around 35% of the participants were aged between 13 and 17 years while 44% were adults aged above 18 years. 


(by Tynan Schweitzer, IET WA YP)