STEM with Science and Technical Writing is taught by Dr. Kevin Crowthers. It is a class where we work on a 6-month long Science project of our choice. Dr. C guides us through the making of our project, starting with brainstorming, moving on to project development, reading articles, and writing our grant proposal and thesis. Then, the students get to present their projects during December fair, February fair, and those who do the best get to advance for the Worcester Regional Science and Engineering Fair. My project was an Autonomous Bicycle Lock to help bicycle riders lock, unlock, and transport their bicycle lock more easily. Feel free to scroll down to learn more about it.
With the increasing rise in bicycle riders in urban areas, I decided to make an autonomous bicycle lock to help secure bicycles in public spaces, while avoiding the annoyance of having to lock and unlock the bike lock. This bike lock is faster, while being easier to use and transport.
Global warming is a worldwide issue that many people are trying to
address. One way that people approach it is by reducing their carbon
footprint by riding their bicycles instead of driving. An issue with
riding bicycles is how to protect them when they are not enclosed on
property. The answer is to lock them around a bike rack using a bike
lock. Unfortunately, these locks are hard to use, transport, require
too much effort from users, and do not secure bicycles properly. The
purpose of this project is to develop an autonomous bicycle lock
using Arduino, RFID, motors, and a solenoid, that will lock and
unlock the bicycle for the rider, and be easier to transport, to
make bike locks more efficient and secure. To achieve this,
prototypes for each part of the mechanism were built out of
cardboard, tested, and analyzed. The parts that performed the best
were incorporated into the final design. The result of this project
is a bicycle lock that took less than 1/3 of the time it takes to
use a regular lock, and was easier to use and transport, by taking
1/2 of the space taken by the average bike lock when unlocked. This
lock could help every bicycle rider lock and unlock their bicycles
to make them safe in public spaces. Future research and improvements
include making the lock helmet-controlled to prevent riders from
forgetting their “key”, incorporating a pedaling-based rechargeable
system, a theft detection system, and a tracking system.
Keywords:
Bicycle Lock, Locking Mechanism, Arduino, RFID, Solenoid, Motor,
Automation
Bicycle locks are hard to use and transport, and require time to lock and unlock
To design and develop the optimal bicycle lock to make the traveling experience more enjoyable and aid with the locking/unlocking of bicycles
Many people have had their bicycles stolen in the past.
Unfortunately, bicycles get stolen every day, and a big factor in
that is the quality of bike locks. Furthermore, because of global
warming, governments are encouraging people to travel green by
reducing their car usage and using bicycles, to help mitigate
climate change, therefore causing an immense rise in bicycle riders
(Galic, 2023). With more people riding bicycles to reduce their
carbon emissions from using cars, the issue of bike theft has become
additionally prevalent. The obvious answer for someone using a
bicycle in their everyday life is to lock their bicycle around a
bicycle rack or pole. However, an issue with many current bicycle
locks is that they are hard to use and transport, require excessive
effort from the users, and do not secure bicycles properly. All this
makes bicycles vulnerable to bike thefts even if they are locked.
Research is constantly being done into bicycle riders’
safety. Research has been conducted to develop helmets preventing
riders from riding their bicycle unless they have their helmet by
using radio-frequency identification (Gudavalli et al., 2017), and
develop complex helmets with plenty of features. These features
include the ability to detect a collision, send messages to
emergency services and contacts in case of a crash, deployment of an
airbag in case of a crash, warn other bicycle riders of unsafe road
conditions, warn for rain, and cameras on the back of the helmet to
detect danger that is not in the field of vision of the rider, with
distance recognition (Solus et al., 2023). These advancements are
excellent and needed, but further research needs to be done to
protect bicycles in order to make sure riders have their bikes
before and after they have ridden safely to their destination.
Locksmithing is a practice that has been around for about
4000 years, starting in Ancient Egypt and Babylon (Seymour, 2022).
Over the years, locks have been improved and developed for all kinds
of uses. Today, smart, electrical locks are being developed. For
example, a smart home lock able to be unlocked using an ID-card and
a mobile application was developed by Najib et al., 2021. Another
example is a smart home lock that was designed to lock and unlock a
home using voice call (Raju, et al., 2018). Nonetheless, not that
many advancements in bicycle locks have been invented. Using these
smart home locks to protect bicycles would be a great advancement
for bike locks and protecting bicycles in public spaces. Despite the
lack of interest in research into futuristic and different locks and
the best ways to lock a bicycle, there are plenty of bicycle locks
that have been developed in the past, each one with a specific
attribute: U-locks for strength, chain locks for flexibility, cable
locks for flexibility and their light weight, and foldable locks for
their portability. Research has also been done into the creation of
an electrical lock. This lock would simplify the entire
locking/unlocking process by using Radio-Frequency Identification
(RFID) instead of making the user go through the process of finding
the lock’s keyhole, inserting the key in it, and then turning the
key, as all that can be hard, especially if the bike rack is full
(Lewallen, 2017). The problem is that these systems still cause
problems in transportation, attachment of the lock, and the time
wasted by doing so. Further digitalizing the whole locking and
unlocking systems may be beneficial, especially since the world is
evolving into this path and more and more people feel comfortable
with digital tools. Digital tools allow for much more access and
flexibility, while also allowing for ease of use (Vailshery, 2023).
For the concern about portability and transport, there is only one
current bike lock design specifically for this use: the foldable
lock. Unfortunately, foldable locks and other locks that are good
for transportation give up strength and sturdiness, which results in
them being much easier to break (Vailshery, 2023). The purpose of
this project is to make a more secure and easy-to-use bicycle lock
to make the entire locking and unlocking experience as well as the
traveling experience more efficient, ultimately serving to make
bicycles safer in public areas.
To achieve this
project, the different parts and components will be analyzed,
chosen, and built separately to build the optimal design. This
approach was chosen for no part to be dependent on another in the
building process, and to be able to make every aspect of the lock
optimal. Firstly, an Arduino UNO was chosen to act as the
microcontroller because of its simple interface for both software
and hardware, and because it is a good tool for the development of
mechanical projects. Then, the closing mechanism was worked on. For
this, 3 different proofs of concepts were built out of cardboard,
tested, and analyzed using a decision matrix for the most crucial
criteria. Later, the Radio Frequency Identification method for using
the lock was chosen using another decision matrix that compared the
4 different ways to lock and unlock the lock that were considered.
Finally, a solenoid was decided to be used as the locking mechanism
for better consistency and durability than a motor. Following the
selection of all the components, the closing mechanism was designed
using CAD, 3D-printed, and all the parts were assembled for the
final product.
This project is important because
unlocking a bike is complicated and could get even more complicated
for people with disabilities or of older age. Attaching a lock
around a bicycle rack and then securing it in order keep the bicycle
safe, and later having to turn a key or enter a passcode and unwrap
the lock to be able to go home may prove much more difficult than
one might imagine. Another issue for people going to work, school,
or anything else on a bicycle is the time it takes to lock and
unlock it. The time might seem minimal, but anything done in a hurry
takes much longer than expected and necessary (Risk Assessment
Management & Prevention, 2019). With this information, when someone
is in a hurry and running late, the already complicated process of
locking a bicycle becomes much longer and much more difficult to
execute. This proves the significance of an autonomous bicycle lock
and how it would help any bicycle rider. This project proposes an
autonomous electrical bicycle lock which is directly connected to
the bicycle and would lock and unlock a bicycle for the rider using
and Arduino UNO, RFID, motors, and a solenoid, by at the same time
being much easier to transport.
Equipment and Materials
The materials used
for this project include an Arduino UNO, serving as the
microcontroller for the system. The Arduino was chosen because of
its flexibility and easy software and hardware interfaces. A TYT TT
gear motor was used to enable the movement of the lock to its lock
and unlock states and was chosen because it was the easiest motor to
obtain. This motor was controlled by the Arduino, but through an
L293D H-bridge, because an external 4x AA battery pack was used for
power. Another component that the Arduino controlled through the
H-bridge is the solenoid. The solenoid acted as the key locking
mechanism in the device to avoid any mechanical issues and for
optimal durability compared to motors. Moreover, the Arduino dealt
with the powering and logic behind the RC522 RFID reader, which was
used to identify different tags and keycards to either grant or deny
access to the lock. All the electrical components were connected
using jumper wires and a breadboard. A 9-volt battery was used to
provide power to the Arduino, and Arduino IDE was used to program
it. Finally, TinkerCad was used to design a preliminary overview and
ensure feasibility of the electrical system, and SolidWorks was used
to design and 3D print all the non-electrical components to be
assembled.
Step 1: Locking
Mechanism
The first step in this project was to decide on
how the lock would lock and unlock. To achieve this, different
proofs of concepts (POC) were imagined, designed, tested, and then
analyzed with the use of a decision matrix (Fig. 1). The goal was to
design the lock to make it easier to transport and increase the
speed of the locking and unlocking. After designing and building 3
different proofs of concepts out of cardboard, they were then tested
and evaluated using a decision matrix (Fig. 1). The testing
strategies included attaching the POCs to a bicycle and riding it to
test for disturbances with the bike’s mechanisms and comfort while
riding, measuring the volume that the POC occupies for comfort while
riding, measuring the space left for tools when the lock was
attached for security once locked, and replicating the lock/unlock
motions for smoothness and potential speed of the device. Each proof
of concept was then graded on a scale going from 1 to 10 for each of
the criteria. As one can see from Figure 1, the first design
achieved the highest score (47), so it was chosen to be the
mechanism for the final product.
Step
2: User Interface
An important aspect in creating a faster,
and easier to use bike lock was to make the whole experience
digital. With the world growing digitally and everything becoming
interconnected (Vailshery, 2023), having a digital user interface
(UI) makes sense. For this, a signal would have to be sent to the
lock in some way, for the bicycle rider to interact with the lock
digitally. To find the best interaction method, different interfaces
were compared using a decision matrix (Fig. 2). The first one was
Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) because it is fast, allowing
for a quick tap of a keycard or fob. Another method for unlocking
was a smartphone application, because of the increasing spread of
phone usage, which creates accessibility for riders. An additional
interaction method analyzed was using a passcode because it would
not require any external device. The final method that was compared
for making the system work was fingerprint scanning because like a
passcode, it does not require any external device, however this
option does not require the rider to remember anything.
The
decision matrix compared all 4 methods, with criteria focusing on
their ease of use, ease of transportation, and the constraint of
additional components on the bicycle. Figure 2 shows that the
keycard/fob using RFID method achieved the highest score (42), so it
was chosen as the final UI and was incorporated in the final design
of the lock.
Implementation
Following
the selection of all the components, the lock had to be built. To do
so, all the non-electrical parts were designed, and then 3D printed
using SolidWorks. Then, the electrical components were all added to
their respective spaces and connected through the breadboard, to
then put the lock together. For the lock to work, the Arduino UNO
was connected to the RC522 and contained a certain keycard/tag
Unique ID (UID) embedded in its memory. When it received a signal
from a keycard or tag, the Arduino read its UID, and if it was
registered in its memory, it would grant access. If it was not
registered, it would deny access. Granted access means the lock
would unlock. In this case, the Arduino would check if the lock was
locked or unlocked, turn on the TT gear motor in the correct
direction (lock or unlock), as well as send power to the solenoid to
make sure it unlocks. It was chosen that a user needs verification
using their keycard or tag to both lock and unlock to avoid adding
components to the system (such as a button). After that, the L293D
would stop the power from going to the motor and solenoid, and the
lock would be successfully locked/unlocked. In the case of a denial,
nothing would happen.
Figure 1: Decision Matrix for analyzing the 3 different closing mechanisms.
Figure 2: Decision matrix for the different methods of interaction with the lock considered.
A 2-Sample T-test for difference of means was used to compare the
average time it takes to lock and unlock the proposed bicycle lock
against the average time it takes to lock and unlock currently used
locks. This test was used to determine if there was a significant
difference in the improvement of times from using regular locks to
using the lock proposed in this study.
The 2-sample t test for a difference in bicycle usage (lock
or unlock) time averages had a p-value of 4.91637*10^-11, which means
there is significant evidence to reject the null hypothesis. In
other words, the improvement in the usage times is significant
because of the p-value being 0.05.
The final product presented is a bicycle lock that is easier to
use, transport, faster to lock/unlock, thanks to the implementation
of electrical technologies like Arduino, RFID, and motors. This
lock could revolutionize the bike industry by making bicycles safer
in public areas. The Autonomous Bicycle Lock will be able to help
people ranging from children going to school every day, to adults
going to their offices in the morning, all the way to the elderly
who enjoy a bicycle ride. This autonomous bicycle lock will help a
significant amount of the world’s population ensure their bicycles
are safe in public areas without having to put too much effort into
locking and transporting the lock, in addition to not having to
worry about the time it will take them to lock or unlock their
bicycles if they are late, or in a hurry. This bicycle lock is a
beginning revolutionizing bike locks and provides a base for future
bicycle locks of this kind.
Future
Research
Future research to further improve this
autonomous bicycle lock include incorporating the UI in a helmet to
make sure bicycle riders are wearing their helmet while riding,
ensure riders don’t forget the keycard or tag, and improve riding
experience because a keycard or tag may be inconvenient for some
bikers to ride with. Another amelioration that could be brought to
this device is making a pedaling-based rechargeable system for the
system to recharge while bikers are riding their bikes to guarantee
that the lock is charged and ready for use. Additionally, this lock
can be upgraded by adding theft-detection features such as a
video-recording system to record thieves, AI to identify threats,
and a Global Positioning System (GPS) module to be able to locate
the bicycle. Finally, making an adjustable closing mechanism for
the device to manage locking around different shaped or sized
objects, and multiple UI methods like a mobile phone application
for users to be capable of locking/unlocking their bike remotely,
and choose which UI method fits them best.
With the immense increase in bicycle riders, the hanging threat of bicycle thefts, and modern bicycles locks being hard to use, transport, and costly (timewise), an autonomous bicycle lock had to be developed to make the locking and unlocking experiences easier and faster, while also making the lock more convenient to transport. To reach this goal, revolutionizing the bike lock using electrical systems was done using an Arduino UNO, RFID, a solenoid, and a motor. The different parts of the system were analyzed separately using decision matrices. Then, the product was 3D printed, built, and evaluated according to specific criteria. The result is a working autonomous bicycle lock, for effortless locking, unlocking, and transportation.
Extracurriculars
Background
Computer Science
Math Modeling
Humanities
Physics
Spanish
STEM I
STEM II