Commuting on a bicycle can be a great way to start the day and for many people it is also the only time to get some exercise. Unfortunately, commuting can also be a sketchy proposition depending on the route that is used to get to work. When my wife and I lived in California I had a 50 mile round trip commute that took me over the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco. Fortunately for me, there were very few incidents that occurred, but occasionally there was the run-in with an inattentive driver or bus operator. Since those days, I have always been alert to new ideas regarding commuting. Recently one in particular caught my eye – the Speed Vest, which was profiled recently in Make magazine.
(Video after the jump)
httpv://youtu.be/ngCatznaSKo
As the name implies, the Speed Vest is an outer shell that can be worn while riding. It features a series of seven-inch tall electroluminescent (cool neon) digits on the back. As the cyclist rides, the speed sensor on the bike does not transmit to a typical bike computer, but to the cool neon display on the back of the vest. Above the digits are the words ‘My Speed’ in large, reflective letters – all of this is for the motorists behind the cyclist to see.
Brady Clark and Mykle Hansen invented the vest to put the speed of the cyclist in front of the motorists’ eyes. The theory is that if the drivers could see how fast the cyclist was traveling, they would have more respect for the cyclist while interacting and over taking them on the road.
Bicyclists receive a lot of honk-based grief from car drivers who perceive them as slow and in the way, and when drivers misjudge a bicycle’s speed, it can cause “right hook” collisions that kill several bicyclists each year. This lightweight night-cycling vest displays your current speed in glowing, 7-inch-tall numbers easily visible to cars. On the back, an Arduino microcontroller reads input from an off-the-shelf bike speedometer sensor, and then switches power to sewn-in numerals made from electroluminescent (EL) wire.
The Speed Vest was the brain child of Clark while Hansen took care of the engineering of the project. The two developed it together during a few all-nighters in Minneapolis, MN; but instead of making a commercial version, they released the project to the public. The first version of the Speed Vest has been out for a little while now and there is already a wish list for the Speed Vest II. Improvements include a wireless option that will utilize Zigbee modules to transmit speed data from the wheel to the Arduino; feature PCB design to reduce size and weight; and a redesign of the numeric displays to show speeds from 1 to 99 miles per hour.
If the Speed Vest project interests you, grab your soldering iron, download the DIY from MAKE and get to work. The pair is looking for input from other users of the Speed Vest to incorporate into the Speed Vest II project. At the very least you will have a unique piece of cycling apparel to don on your own night rides, but who knows, you may discover a way to make this project more useful in saving other commuters from injury.
Speed Vest Official Website
[Via MAKE: How-To: Speed Vest for Night Cycling]