Legacy Bicycle

Type: EECE 518 (Human Interface Technologies) Project

Year: 2015

Teammates: Sara Maia, Zemeng Wang

Key Skills: Mechatronic System Design; C++; Arduino; Android Studio

Additional Information: Sara Maia’s Personal Website

Objectives:

To investigate the elements that drive human being to bond to a device.
To create an add-on device that will mimics a real horse through various sensory input and the corresponding feedback.

Summary:
Worked on this project with two other classmates. I primarily focused on designing and developing the electrical and mechanical add-on system while the others focused on developing a software that runs on an Android OS and conducting in-depth literature review. We conducted human subject studies to determine the effectiveness of different behaviour of the device.

The system mainly consists of a cell phone, three servo motors, and a micro-controller. The software uses the phone’s sensors such as the touchscreen, the microphone, and the accelerometer to generate the corresponding response and sends the command to the micro-controller. The micro-controller then controls the servo-motor to perform the preassigned gestures such as nodding its “head”.
Researched and discussed the methods to achieve the objectives and determine the critical feedback that should be included based on interviews with horse riders.
Designed and assembled circuitry that connects three servo motors with the micro-controller. • Programmed the Arduino micro-controller to control the movement of the servo motors and interface with the software on the phone.
Designed and constructed mechanical fixtures to attach all the components onto a regular bicycle.