Category Archives: Atomic Duck
Seat Reclining Bar
When I originally posted about the seat structure, I left the seat adjustment separate from the main seat structure design. I had the ideas about how to implement the adjuster, but it needed some time to let them mature into a practical design. The idea is to use the simplest adjustment mechanism possible. It needs [...]
Rear Hanger Shear Strap
Using adhesive as the main joining method for the Atomic Duck requires careful design of the part interfaces. Where welding is equally as strong in all directions, adhesive performs well in compression and shear, but badly when there is tension across the joint. This is not a problem of the type of adhesive, this is [...]
A001_P018_R001 Chain Cover
As the chain has been rerouted for this design revision, and now goes through the cab and luggage area, that area needs to be covered. While this could be covered with 3 interlocking panels, I don’t want to leave sharp corners in the luggage area. Instead, a single piece that uses lattice hinges to create [...]
A003_R002 Seat Design
The seat structure seems to have taken the most time of all the assemblies to re-design, though it was interrupted by some thesis redrafts. It’s perhaps a measure of the amount of how much work was needed on the previous revision (A003_R001). One crucial task in the redesign was changing the cross beams from aluminium [...]
Seat Shape
This post is a bit of a development of design ideas. Sometimes it’s good to go through each stage of a design and explain why it has been rejected. Of course, like any design process there’s a good deal of opinion, approximation and guesswork to it, so be sure to add a comment below if [...]
Cockpit Clearances
Designing a cockpit to accommodate a range of rider sizes is more complex than laying out the controls to fit one rider; especially having a steering wheel control for such a reclined operator instead of underseat/tiller steering or a moveable yoke. To account for different height riders while still keeping the rider’s eyeline above the [...]
Kingsbury K-Drive
The video below of the Human Power Team‘s elliptical drive system is the first time I’ve seen a non-circular power system in motion. Functionally identical to the “K-Drive” of the Kingsbury Kingcycle, the mechanism is first described in 1890, so it might be more correct to call it a “Vietor Elliptical Drive”, it’s best known [...]
Steering Assembly
I went through the steering pulley arrangement in detail last week, and here’s the whole steering assembly: There’s additional support structure around the pulley mount on the dash panel. As it was, the length of the steering column meant that the dash panel would be very easily bent out of shape. The additional structure from [...]
Solidly Mounted Steering
well, not solid, it’s no good if you can’t turn the wheel! Before I show the complete steering assembly, I wanted to show the detail of the steering pulley, where the driver’s end of the steering cables connects to the steering wheel and how all the parts clamp up around the dash panel to allow [...]
Is it a Car or is it a Bike?
The correct answer is probably: door number three — “neither, it’s a different vehicle that is somewhere between both of them”. I’ve had a re-read recently of Frederik Van De Walle’s Master’s Thesis “The Velomobile as a Vehicle for more Sustainable Transportation” (freely available to download from his site); and while I’ve never used the [...]