CounterSteering Stefan Dancy, Jeff Williams, Ryan McGuire Advisor: Dr. Rebecca Brannon Why? What is the need?

The correct way to turn a single track to the left:

Without initiating a turn with a countersteer, the rider will crash about two

Source: meters into the turn https://www.vf750fd.com/ Turn the bars slightly Bike will lean to the left Relax, the bars will turn to blurbs/counter.html to the right the left. You’re carving!

Hypothesis: Our team’s hypothesis is that by allowing a child to ride a tricycle that requires them to steer in the opposite direction than they would like to turn, it will subconsciously teach them to countersteer. Countersteering during early development will help children learn to properly turn any single-track vehicle, such as a . Data Driven Design Optimization: Yield Strength Deformation

Design Parameters: ● Retrofit to current children's tricycle designs ● Change turn initiation to the opposite direction of the turn ● Safe for children to ride ○ Meet ASTM standard ● Similar input forces to riding a bicycle and/or tricycle ● Easy to install ○ Benchmark handlebar replacement time Maximum Stress: 1.056 *108 N/m2 Maximum Deformation: 0.25 mm Factor of safety: 3.266 Allowable Gear Misalignment: 1 mm Factor of Safety: 4

Challenges:

• • Presenting solid evidence of the need to teach counter on a bike. The concept is widely misunderstood.

• • Extremely tight budget of $150

. - Forced us to buy gears that are not at a 1 to 1 ratio for prototype.

• • Using used bikes from the DI resulted in many non-matching threads.

• • Could not afford to buy an adult sized tricycle to test prototype. Had to use a bike with training wheels.

Prototype: Conclusion: This semester our team built a gearbox that can be attached to a standard bicycle or tricycle that will • Material of gearbox: reverse its steering. We designed our gearbox based on the specifications called out in the ASTM 2024 T3 Aluminum standards for condition 3 . Our design results show that this design can be safely integrated into • Our design uses a children's tricycle. To test the success of our design our prototype was attached to an adult-sized standard 1” headsets bicycle. Overall our prototype meets the design needs of our customer and will be a key part of testing to hold the steering its ability to teach children how to countersteer using a tricycle. tubes in place Look Ahead: The next step in this project is to pass the product along to the psychology or sports science department to test how well the device teaches a child to properly steer a bike. Also, our group will next work on developing a provisional patent to protect the design.