Rice team wins TxDOT challenge

By Tina Nazerian     1/13/14 6:00pm

A team of six Rice University undergraduates won the first annual Texas Department of Transportation College Challenge, held Jan. 6-8 in San Antonio at the Ninth Annual Texas Transportation Forum in San Antonio, for developing an expandable bike rack that would attach to buses and allow for more bicyclists to ride public transport, according to the official Texas Department of Transportation website.

Team member Annabelle McIntire-Gavlick said the Metropolitan Transit Authority asked the group to design a rack that could hold three bikes without blocking the driver's field of vision. 

"[METRO is] ordering new buses that have larger front windows, which created the need for this new technology," McIntire-Gavlick, a Lovett College freshman, said. "We came up with a design solution that has a sliding third wheel mount. When the bike rack is in use, the wheel mount can slide outward, allowing enough room for bikes to load and unload without coming into contact with each other."

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McIntire-Gavlick said the third wheel mount slides in and the bike rack folds up when not in use, making it short enough so that it will not block the driver's visual field.

Team member Kenny Groszman said that due to time and budget constraints, the team did not build a bus attachment.

"The [method of] attachment is different for each different type of bus," Groszman, a Hanszen College freshman, said. "Also, that technology exists in current bike racks, so we decided to focus more on the innovative part of our design, which is the sliding attachment."

McIntire-Gavlick said the bike rack is only a working prototype.

"Any further progress toward getting it on a bus is left up to METRO and out of our hands," McIntire-Gavlick said. 

Groszman said the team tried many failed designs before successfully making a locking mechanism for the sliding attachment.

"We went through four different iterations for the locking mechanism that allow the sliding attachment to deploy and collapse," Groszman said. "It took that many repetitions until we found something that didn't almost immediately break under the weight of the sliding attachment. We did not initially expect to have to go through that many iterations but we learned quickly that the prototyping process is cyclical rather than linear."

Team member Kivani Sanchez said the team designed the bike rack in the ENGI 120: Introduction to Engineering Design class last semester, hoping it would improve Houston's biking culture.

"As we delved into our research about bike racks, public transit systems, and rules and regulations set forth by communities all around the nation that are meant to support and encourage biking as a means of primary transportation, we realized that in comparison to the rest of the U.S., the Texas biking culture has fallen far behind in development," Sanchez, a Lovett freshman, said. 

According to team member Max Hasbrouck, the contest emphasizes technology and innovation. 

"[The contest is] focused on bringing new thinkers to the field of transportation," Hasbrouck, a Will Rice College freshman, said. 

Team member Brian Barr said the team learned it does not have to be experts on a subject to contribute to the field. 

"What you need is the desire to learn and work hard," Barr, a Brown College freshman, said. 

The prize was $3,000 and a plaque to be displayed at the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, according to team member Sharon Ghelman.

"Though our group was brought together almost randomly with a shared desire to participate in building a bike rack, over the course of the semester and this competition, we have found common interests and become very close as a team and as friends," Ghelman, a Will Rice freshman, said.

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