Integrating the alternator motor into the bicycle required designing a completely new mounting system and drivetrain. I started by measuring the mounting holes on the alternator and designing a custom bracket in CAD that would correctly position and orient the motor relative to the frame. The bracket was 3D printed and used to space the alternator properly from the frame. Once everything was aligned, I drilled mounting holes into the bike frame and secured the motor in place.

Instead of using a traditional chain and sprocket system, I designed a pulley and belt driven drivetrain. This allowed me to experiment with different pulley ratios to tune the balance between torque and top speed, while also making the system smoother and quieter. Switching away from the chain system introduced a few challenges. One of the first was removing the existing sprockets while still keeping the one way bearing that allows the bike to glide without pedalling. To solve this, I designed a setup where a pulley could be bolted directly to the existing sprocket body, placing the bolts between the teeth to create a strong connection that transferred the rotational motion to the pulley.

Another challenge was selecting the correct belt and ensuring it had enough tension to prevent slipping. I chose a belt slightly larger than required and incorporated an idler tensioner to properly tighten it around the pulleys and maintain consistent contact during operation.

After fixing the brakes, mounting the throttle, and 3D printing a custom phone holder, I was finally able to test ride the bike. It reached a top speed of around 30 km/h, which closely matched the performance I had predicted from my pulley ratio and motor speed calculations. This project while functional is still a work in progress, in the future I would like to implement some better cable management and a removable battery mounting system to allow for easier recharging.

This project was completed as part of a university class where we were tasked with designing and building an Arduino powered version of a “Bop It” style reaction game. The project involved creating the full circuit schematic in KiCad and writing the firmware to control the gameplay.

The game worked by moving a sequence of lights from left to right across a row of LEDs. The player had to press a button at the right moment while the light was in the green zone to advance to the next level. If the button was pressed too early while the light was in the red zone, the player would drop back a level. Pressing the button in the yellow zone would keep the player on the same level.

To make the game progressively more challenging, the speed of the moving lights increased each time the player advanced a level, requiring faster reactions and better timing.

The project helped in my introduction to circuit design, microcontroller programming, and game logic to create a simple but engaging interactive system.