Hello there!

I am a happy Nerdkits customer, and I recently developed a project -the Smartbike- in which I interface a bicycle to a computer using electronics and microcontrollers. I just thought it was worth sharing it here! :)

The smartbike consists of both software and hardware, which offers a realistic user interface and gaming experience to the user. It reads the real speed of the bike, the movement of the handlebar, and also the heart-rate thanks to another project I developed (smart-pulse-band) which works with optical sensors that detects the small light changes due to the blood flow. Then everything is translated on a 3D computer game.

I recently launched the Smartbike at a crowdfunding website to ask for support to bring this technology to the market as we still need to port the hardware to non-stationary bikes. Check it out here (make sure to watch the video):

http://www.indiegogo.com/smartbike

Support this project by choosing any of the perks! :)

lcruz007, once again you have blown me away.

How old are you now?

Have you started college yet?

For those of you who have not seen lcruz007's other projects.

Now what you should do is to put advertising billboards along your route.

You could get Nike and Coke and everybody to sponsor you.

In the video how are you doing blood flow with just the wrist strap?

What a pretty girl.

Ralph

lcruz007, what is open source about your Smartbike?

That might deter some investors.

Ralph

Hey Ralph,

Thanks for your reply. I am really glad you liked the project. I did start college last semester (on spring) in the US, and I am now on my second semester in New Orleans on my freshman year of Electrical Engineering, I am 19 years old right now. Well we have decided that crowdfunding might be a good way to get this into the market, because we still need the money to keep improving the prototype and port the technology to non-stationary bikes. I'll be releasing the code as open source on December, but that's only if the project is successfully funded at that Indiegogo campaign. If it's not, we would try to get this into the market by looking for investors. :)

Thanks a lot Ralph!

Luis Cruz

www.intelsath.com

Luis -

What would be really cool is to add buttons to the handlebar grips that you could use to fire weapons at some bad guys. The worst part of exercising is the boredom of just pedaling or jogging or whatever you're doing. Being chased, chasing something else, hunting down monsters etc. would be a great distraction and if the virtual environment is immersive enough, may even prod the cyclist to work out harder without even knowing it. It's similar to the Wii concept, except it's on a bike and the effort is much greater than just swinging a nunchuck.

pcbolt, now that is a great idea. There would be a comparison with the wii.

Ralph

In conjunction with pcbolt's suggestion, Luis could always incorporate his HCI using electrooculography project to control aim of the guns with your eyes!

So a bad guy could pop up on the screen and you could direct your guns using your eyes.

You would get bike exercise and eye exercise at the same time.

Of course the HCI is Nerdkit controlled!

Ralph

Those are really nice suggestions guys, I appreciate the feedback. We are working hard to incorporate new features to the smartbike, specially to make the gaming experience even more enjoyable. However, due to the slow activity in Indiegogo we might have to delay a little bit the incorporation of any new features to it.

Hi Luis, one more thing to add and maybe you could get a sponsor from it.

What if you mounted a GO Pro video camera to a real bike and take a movie of a trip/circuit/course.

And then played the video back on your virtual screen!!

You could exchange circuits with your friends.

You could have road courses and off road.

Of course it would be neat to take your heartrate while riding the circuit so that your program could put a load on your stationary bike when going up a hill.

You could probable get GO to sponsor you.

To say nothing about Nike and other sports apparel.

You should also look into just licensing your program.

Don't bother with trying to setup a company with all of the hassles that involves.

Ralph