Our projects theme was aimed to "reduce the risk of bicycle accidents," which was proposed by Toshiba System Technology Corporation. We took two risk reduction measures. First, we specified the function of the Bicycle Simulator (BS). Second, we created a feasible business model of the BS. Even though the BS itself is effective to reduce the number of bicycle accidents, it's meaningless if promotion fail and strategy to enter the market collapse. Taking into various aspects into account, Cycle K's bicycle simulator was narrowed down to the concept "Moving Box." There are 3 reasons to be explained.
First, the reason was to avoid the violation of patents to Honda's BS. In the first line of the document which guards the interest of Honda's BS, it is stated "Honda's BS was designed so as to make it similar to actual design and dynamics of bicycles." By creating a whole set of BS system which move by a truck and have user's bicycle installed in it, we came up with a solution to bypass the patent.
Second, the purpose was to reduce risks in selling the BS. At first, we ourselves working on this project were suspicious about working towards the designing of the BS. We thought that consumers would also feel the same anxiety. The question "How can we invite people to come to ride our bicycle simulator?" always hanged about. In the beginning, we have discussed about including factors of entertainment so that it would attract many people. However, we had a paradigm shift in our idea, "If the customers won't come, why don't we go for them?" By promoting the BS by a truck, we can promote and find secret sales at the same time while developing products other than the prototype version.
Third, we wanted to deliver the consumers an image of a gift box. Our catch copy for the bicycle simulator is "Moving Box, Blooming Happiness." We used a rhyme so it would sound nice. After sales come stable, one can remove the truck part out of the package provided and sell only the part of box.
For the moment, we end our project in proposing the concept design and business design of BS. We have left a margin to discuss about the design of BS itself. In the thesis "Bicycle Dynamics and Control" published by the IEEE association, it's stated "Control is important for design. Engineering systems are traditionally designed based on static reasoning, which does not account for stability and controllability." Studying control would give limitations on design options. Hereafter is described the systems engineering approach to our project.
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