Glove-Mounted Bell: Wearable Device for Producing Audible Alert while Bicycling or Doing Other Activities

Overview

Objectives/Goals To study if a glove-mounted audible alert device could make cycling safer. To determine if a glove-mounted device is easier to use than a traditional bike bell because it does not require the user to remove or reposition the hand on the bike handlebar. A secondary goal was to determine if a similar device had already been invented. Methods/Materials The device is a bicycle glove that has copper pieces added to the thumb and middle finger. A wire runs from each of the copper pads to an electronic, sound-producing device mounted on the back of a glove. The electronic device is powered by a battery. To use the glove, the rider can keep their hand on the handlebar. When the rider touches his/her middle finger and thumb together, it produces an audible alert. Tests compared the device to a traditional handlebar mounted bicycle bell. The first test measured the ability to stay on a straight line while ringing each type of bell. The second test measured rider turning abilities through a slalom course while ringing each type of bell. Results Test one: The average number of times that the rider went off the line was 1.5 for the glove-mounted audible device vs. 2.9 for the traditional bike bell. The average amount of times the rider was able to ring the glove-mounted audible device was 10.9 vs. 6.9 for the traditional bike bell. Test two: The average number of missed cones on the slalom course of 11 cones was 0.7 for the glove-mounted audible device vs. 2.7 for the traditional bike bell. The average amount of times the rider was able to ring the glove-mounted audible device was 33.2 vs. 25.0 for the traditional bike bell. Conclusions/Discussion The results support the hypothesis that if a bicycle rider uses the glove-mounted audible alert device then the rider would be safer than if they use a traditional handlebar-mounted bell to alert fellow travelers of their position. The glove-mounted device required less repositioning of the hand so the riders were able to stay on course and ring the glove-mounted bell more often. Riders reported it felt more comfortable to touch the fingers together to ring the bell. A provisional patent was filed for this device after research concluded that a similar device had not been patented.

Competition history

• CSEF 2018 Applied Mechanics & Structures · Entry J0324

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Engineering projects
• CSEF Engineering projects
• Every CSEF 2018 project