Company Profile

Founded in January 2021, Climate Bike Inc. is an electric bike startup based in Winnipeg. The company's goal is to design and manufacture 4-wheeled, fully enclosed, electric bikes; suitable for the weather in Canada.

Overview of Work Experience

I started working with Climate Bike Inc. in February 2021 as a contract mechanical designer. In the beginning, I was responsible for designing the bike concepts. I turned ideas into sketches and sketches into detailed CAD models using Fusion360. Throughout the designing process, we had many discussions, generated many ideas, and made a lot of improvements to the designs. We produced six bike concepts and several versions in this process.

In May 2021, I officially joined Climate Bike Inc. full-time. The next stage of the project was to design the comprehensive mechanical components of the bike and perform tests on the low chassis/suspension system. I used Solidworks to design the bike components and fabricated them at Northforge Fabrication Lab. This position introduced me to many new experiences, knowledge, and people.

Application of Theory

I applied a lot of theoretical knowledge to my work at Climate Bike. Most of the knowledge was learned at the University, other was obtained from research papers or books that I found helpful. Here are some examples of the applications of theory in my work:

• To design the bike concept, we had to come up with a lot of parameters including power, speed, range, wheelbase, wheel size, bike geometry (height, width, length constraints), etc. To come up with reasonable and feasible design parameters, I had to calculate the approximate drag of the bike (using fluid dynamics theory), calculate the turn radius constraint (from kinetic and dynamic course), choose the motor configuration (based on mass distribution, power, and so on).
• I also apply knowledge from material courses to choose the right material for each mechanical component.
• Stress analysis was also performed when designing the bike chassis and other components.
• The bike suspension and steering configuration/geometry were also designed based on the knowledge obtained from many sources, some of which are:
  • The Automotive Chassis by Giancarlo Genta and Lorenzo Morello and
  • Fundamentals of Vehicle Dynamics by Thomas D Gillespie.

Practical Experiences

I gained a lot of practical experiences during my work at Climate Bike Inc. Here are some examples of my experiences:

• Experience communicating with many stack holders: company owners, contractors, and potential customers (I also participated in designing the interview questions for potential customers, which helped us shape our product and increase the commercial potential).
• Experience using many power tools, machines including lathe, milling machines, CNC, bandsaw, sheet metal bender, 3D printer, etc.
• We all learned about materials in the University, but hands-on fabrication experiences tremendously helped shape my understanding on materials properties, especially aluminum and steel.

Project Management

As Climate Bike was a small company, I had to wear many hats and be responsible for the project management aspect of the project. Here are some tasks related to project management that I have done:

• Project scope management: I produced the WBS and defined the scope at each stage of the project.
• Project schedule management: I discussed and planned the schedule for the project with the company owners, estimated the duration of each task.
• Cost management: I estimated the cost of labour and material for each component of the bike and suggested alternatives based on the budgets.

Ethical Responsibilities

• Our products (the electric bikes) were developed to reduce the greenhouse gas emission caused by conventional vehicles and reduce the cost of transportation. The safety of the riders is our number one priority.
• Although Climate Bike has yet to produce a company-levelled code of ethics, I always comply with the Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba Code of Ethics.