N-Force
Police E-Bike
Georgia Tech Best Studio Project 2022
N-FORCE is an e-bike tailored for city and campus police officers. It is designed with affordances created specifically for officers' daily tasks, is made out of lightweight carbon fiber, has a powerful & distinguishable look, and contains a smaller battery that can be swapped at rest areas.
Team: Akin Tewe, Clarissa Yu, Margaret Lu
My role: Research, Sketching, CAD, Rendering
Animation credit: Akin Tewe
Research
Policemen don't use bikes just to move from one point to another. In fact, there are a lot of maneuvers and techniques they learn during training that require the bike to be held, turned, or used as a shield.
The bikes they currently use are not customized and are missing essential features to execute these techniques as well as being difficult to control in high stress situations,
Ideation
N-4 tackles those problems as well as making bike officers stand out. Our bike combines an aggressive silhouette with smooth detail transitions to make the bike authoritative yet approachable.
VR Testing
The team used VR as a main prototyping tool. By adjusting dimensions of the fit bike and loading the model into VRED, we literally ride our bike. By visualizing the bike in 3d space, I could adjust the proportions and placement of the different touchpoints to make sure they are comfortable.
Prototyping
Before building a full-scale model, we created a cardboard overlay for the fit bike to see the general geometry and 3D printed a small bike model. This allowed us to discover that the basket will block the handlebars from turning, which we fixed before moving on to the final model.
The full scale model of our bike was 3D printed in two halves and then glued together. We spackled and sanded it for a smooth finish, primed it, and covered it in carbon fiber vinyl for a realistic look. Smaller parts such as the dials, battery, and lights were 3D printed and finished normally without vinyl.
Final Design
The final design features elements useful to officers in an aesthetic way, highlighting them in a bright green color to indicate that they are touch point locations.
Swappable Battery
The battery was designed to be exchangeable at charging stations. By holding on to an ergonomic ledge, it is easy to remove and slide back into the bike.
Simple Bag Attachment
An officer’s bag contains many important items such as notebook, tickets, first aid kit, and personal things. It is important to keep it in sight and also have an easy way to attach and remove it from the bike. The N-4 basket allows for easy snap-on and snap-off of the bag
Holds
During training, officers learn to pick up the bike and carry it on their shoulder up the stairs, or carry it in front of them as a shield. N-FORCE’s shoulder pad and neon holding grips allow for a more comfortable execution of those tasks.
