a squirrel inspired bike lock for trail blazers

summer personal project

project goal:

to create a retractable bike lock for bikers who like to trail blaze and park their bikes in areas that do not have a parking rack. To accomplish this, the lock will have a flexible and wide range of motion, simple storage, be able to go around larger circumferences, and a compact design.

analysis on commonly used bike locks

I began this project by doing a study on the current most popular types of bike locks. I looked at their individual design successes and design flaws, so that I could better understand what works well for the locks, and what opportunities there were to improve that my lock could do.

common problems with popular bike locks:

after drawing my initial sketches, I took my favorite concepts and modeled them. I used corrugated cardboard, cut out the forms using an exacto knife, and put them together using tape and glue.

low fidelity modeling

the squirrel

the tiny animals that bring me joy whenever I spot them.

when creating my lock, I kept thinking about the setting that my bike lock would be most commonly used in. knowing that my lock would most likely be used on a trail ride, I started looking for inspiration on what to model the form after and settled on the squirrel. I wanted my design to resemble the funny comforting creatures that roam the bike trails.

studying the squirrel form

squirrels are creatures with many organic and prominent curves. I wanted to focus on understanding those curves so I could portray them with my lock. my final goal is to have the lock resemble the squirrel’s organic nature without completely looking like a squirrel.

testing for optimal placement on bike

after settling on the final design of my lock, I began playing around with different placements of my low fidelity model on an actual bike frame. I focused on trying to find the most optimal placement for the lock that would likely fit other frames and still be in a secure area that the biker could reach if needed.

final concept

assembly of parts animation

once my final form was modeled in fusion, I created an exploded view animation that shows the assembly of all the parts that are used to create the form.

final prototype

final photos of the SLA resin printed model. this is a physical prototype to show the final forms and mechanism of the product.

creating a logo

I wanted to design a logo that would help with the brand visualization of my lock. I began by sketching different thumbnails, trying to combine the squirrel and lock figures together.

I proceeded with the green highlighted thumbnail, and entered it into chatgpt asking it to “create a logo based on my sketch for a retractable bike lock for trailblazers that is inspired by a squirrel.” it came up with the series of ideas below and using the middle idea as my inspiration, I then came up with the final logo design.