James Madison University

Project Title:

Promoting Sustainability on Campuses: A College Student Run, Electric-Assisted Bicycle Competition for High Schools 

Project Team:

  • Dr. Samantha Prins (Department of Mathematics & Statistics, JMU, Principal Investigator)
  • Dr. Rob Prins (Department of Engineering, JMU, Co-PI)
  • Margaret Beckom (Mathematics & Statistics student)
  • Paul Crisman (ISAT student)
  • Ari Giller-Leinwohl (ISAT student)
  • Lianne Loizou (Secondary Education and Mathematics & Statistics student)
  • Tripp Loflin (ISAT student)
  • Patrick Reiser (ISAT student)
  • Sam Sweet (ISAT student)

Project Description:      

A team of JMU students designed a competition that would have teams of high school students design and build electric-assisted bicycles to meet the needs of commuters on college campuses. The goal of their competition is two-fold: to promote STEM education in the high school population and to promote sustainable transportation in the community. Competition events and judging criteria are based on the responses of JMU students to a survey of their transportation habits and requirements.

As part of the project students built three electric-assisted bicycles in order to anticipate what pitfalls the high school students might face.  The student team used these bicycles to demonstrate electric-assisted bicycle usage while participating in the Environmental Protection Agency’s 5th annual National Sustainable Design Expo on the National Mall in Washington DC.  During the expo the team made presentations to two teams of judges and Ari Giller-Leinwohl was interviewed for the Online Newshour with Jim Lehrer;

View the podcast of this interview (beginning at 3:48 min).

PHOTO: Students with ebike project

Team members present their project to judges during the 5th annual National Sustainable Design Expo on the national mall

Links:

More information on this project can be found on our project blog:

Funding Source or Sponsor (if applicable):

This project was sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency.  This project is housed in the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Lab.