August 2, 2017

eBikes: Future Transportation

Posted on August 2, 2017March 6, 2020 by Staff Writer

Self-driving cars, autonomous drones, and electric scooters are just some of the most innovative approaches offered in transportation market. eBikes, also known as electric bikes or booster bikes, are gaining market share in a crowded alternative transportation industry. eBikes were held back for years, because of the need for power-packed lightweight batteries.

In most areas, ebikes are legally classified as bicycles rather than being treated as motorcycles or mopeds, depending on the local laws.

Now, with new materials and battery technology, eBikes are taking off. They are taking over the sweetspot with people who want to bike a bit further than is comfortable without a little help, or on hilly terrain.

Also, new developments allow for pedal assist, where the rider provides a good portion of the power, and the battery just helps out, or they can be ridden by just sitting back and letting the motor do the work.

Just in time for the summer season, ebikes are gaining popularity across Europe. In Leitrim, a town in the north of Ireland, Seamus and Eileen Gibbons, brought eBikes to town five years ago. They are the founders of Electric Bike Trails, and have worked to popularize eBikes through the region.

For the first time, the couple has ventured into Northern Ireland, crossing the border on the newly established eBike trail. The trail is part of the new waterways Ireland Blueway activity hub in the town of Enniskillen.

According to Seamus, “eBikes are very simple and straight forward. They are the same as an ordinary bike, just that they have a battery and a motor. You pedal all the time, but it’s only a matter of turning the pedals. You have seven or eight gears, and three levels of assistance. If you put it in low gear and with a high assistance, you’ll climb up any mountain.”

eBikes have become popular in countries like the Netherlands and Germany. In the Netherlands, electric bike sales grew 24% to reach 276,000 last year. In Germany, the sale of eBikes grew 11% in 2015. The country has seen around 535,000 units sold.

The Electric Bike World Report has mentioned that for the year 2015, 35 million eBikes were sold. Most of the demand came from China, where bikes are still one of the most common forms of transportation in the cities and the countryside. China is also starting to replace fossil fuel-powered mopeds and small motorcycles, with electric bikes and scooters.

Laws When It Come to Ebikes

In most areas, ebikes are legally classified as bicycles rather than being treated as motorcycles or mopeds, depending on the local laws. eBikes don’t usually require any extra certifications or permits over an ordinary bicycle.

There are places that have legislated electric bicycle laws in order to control the use of ebikes. Canada and the United States of America have federal regulations determining the standards of manufacture and safety requirements.

In Australia, Australian Vehicle Standards describe an ebikes as a bicycle that has a supplementary motor. Currently, all states in Australia decided that the vehicle does not need registration or licensing.

In Hong Kong, booster bikes are not allowed in public areas. They must first be considered as either a car, van, motorcycle, truck, bus, van or similar. eBikes are considered motorcycles in Hong Kong and they need an approval from the Transport Department.

In India, eBikes need to have an ARAI approval. But they do not require any certification.

In Israel, the maximum weight of eBikes should not exceed to 30 kilograms. People who are above 16 years old are allowed to use eBikes.

In the Philippines, according to the Land Transportation Office, ebikes do not require any registrations.

Most Popoular eBikes

eBikes have become a massive success and manufacturers are under pressure to develop specialized models. These models offer best performance and affordability. The following eBike companies are raising the bar:

Pedego – develops and sells its own brand of booster bikes. Pedego is headquartered in Irvine, California. The eBikes that the company offers can be manually pedaled and are also electrically powered. The bikes reach speeds of up to 20 miles per hour. Pedego’s products are the following:
Interceptor Beach Cruiser
Comfort Cruiser Beach Cruiser
City Commuter Commuter Bike
Boomerang Step-through Cruiser
Tandem Cruiser Bike-for-Two
Stretch Cargo Bike installed with front and back cargo area
Trail Tracker Fat Tire All-Terrain Bike
Ford Super Cruiser
Ridge Rider Mountain Bike
Latch foldable bike
X-Treme – manufactures and sells electric scooters and bicycles. X-Treme has one of the biggest selections of light electric vehicles on the internet. They offer folding eBikes, cruisers, city commuters, and mountain bikes. Their eBikes range from $500 to $1500.
IZIP – Founded in 2005, IZIP has over 10 years of experience when it comes to designing and developing electric bikes. The company, located in Southern California, is one of the biggest electric bike suppliers in the world. The company’s bikes are bright, with unique colors and stylish graphics.
Specialized – Based in Morgan Hill, CA, Specialized was founded in 1974. Specialized is known for building bikes for specific purposes with high-end off the shelf parts from a variety of manufacturers, they manufacture non-electric as well as electric bikes. The price of their electric bikes goes up to $10,000.
Rad Power – is a booster bike manufacturer that offers direct-to-consumer pricing. The bikes are designed by a team in Seattle. Rad Power specializes in electric bikes that are all-terrain. The company has become a trusted brand for a specialized niche market since 2007.

Benefits of Electric Bikes as a Mode of Transportation

Booster bikes have really important advantages over regular transportation. Even if the rider is already physically fit and exercise regularly, an electric bike can increase the range that can be covered by bicycle, and the ease, making it an ideal choice for travel and commuting that is just a little too far on a pedal-powered bike, or for hilly areas where a bit of assistance on the grades makes the difference between riding or not.

Some factors that make eBikes worth considering as part of the commuting mix;

eBikes are environmentally friendly. They do not contribute to air pollution, noise pollution, or the greenhouse dilemma. eBikes, reduce the carbon footprint over many other forms of transportation.
eBikes allow for longer distance travel with less effort and faster speed than most pedal-power bikes. (Sure, racers easily beat eBikes, but we are talking about average riders off to work or school) eBikes are also great for climbing hills.
eBikes allow riders to go straight to their work, without the stress of being caught in the traffic or searching for parking.

eBikes are a combination of an electric scooter and a normal bicycle. The market for these bikes is growing very fast. If eBikes are part of the future, then apparently the future is now.

Sustainable Roads, the Future Comes to Georgia

Posted on August 2, 2017July 15, 2024 by Staff Writer

Imagine driving to and from work without hitting a single pothole. Well that possible future might be closer than you think. With many focused on ground-breaking car technology it is easy to disregard the highways themselves as having only a supporting role. However, one group is now at the forefront of a new innovation through sustainable roads. ‘Superhighways’ boldly take a step into tomorrow with sustainable resources that can help cut infrastructure costs and improve driver safety.

The automated car is coming soon, but the intelligent highway is not getting here soon enough.

Just outside of Lagrange, Georgia, there is an 18-mile long stretch of the I-85 which is paving the way for sustainable roads. This development is a step above a traditional intelligent highway. The organization behind it is called the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, which was founded by Harriet Langford, the daughter of Ray Anderson. Ray founded Interface, the carpet company which pioneered sustainability with the use of square carpet tiles. They later on introduced the use of nylon carpet fiber, which was 100% recyclable. The company became a pioneer in sustainability, and are still pursuing this today.

The Foundation had a goal to support sustainability initiatives in memory of Ray Anderson. They got a stretch of highway to memorialize Anderson, and to further drive sustainability efforts. With this opportunity, they made it a showcase of eco-friendly highway technology.

This innovative technology is “the Ray”, and showcases a visitors center at the start of the 18-mile length. While there, visitors can top up their electric vehicles. This electricity comes from a photovoltaic energy array which also supplies energy for the visitors center.

The Automated Superhighway

The highway has skid-resistant solar panels are on top of the road. There are also areas where drivers can have their tires checked for tread depth and pressure with the use of sensors. This information is provided in five seconds. The highway likewise uses SmartStuds, which utilize LEDs to communicate data from the sensor’s data network.

At the same time, there’s a vertical wind turbine system which can generate power with as little as 4 mile per hour winds. The maintenance of roads also use recycled tires. To repave the roads they use a mix of old tires and cement. The resulting pavement repels water down and out of the road, instead of letting it rest on top. There has been proof that this is 20%-30% more durable than traditional concrete.

Sustainable Roads in Preparation for Cars of the Future

There is a lot of talk about the car of the future. Cars built the United States. The interstate highway system was built to support cars. In some communities, there are no real mass transit systems because cars act as such. The offshoot of this is the need for roads, streets and highways where people can drive their cars safely. The automated car is coming soon, but the intelligent highway is not getting here soon enough.

It has been estimated that it requires $1 trillion to maintain, repair and rebuild big portions of the country’s infrastructure. These include roads and bridges across the United States. To support the nation’s continued growth and interstate traffic, these roads and bridges must be built or repaired. What is missing in all these costs is that the technology for these roads has not changed much in the last 50 to 70 years.

The concept of an intelligent highway has been with us for quite some time. This is a road system which communicates with the vehicles driving over it. The highway also makes use of solar energy, powering intelligent LEDs which signal the driver about road conditions. There were several concepts with various intelligent solar with LED power. These include LEDs which change color to indicate whether the driver should slow down. The LED lights have been shown to be very effective during heavy fog or snow, where there is almost zero visibility.

One aim of the sustainable roads project is to prepare for automated cars. From the point of view of the road, automated cars are an inevitability, and it requires the road to catch up in order to keep the passengers and driving conditions safe.

Undergraduate Research — A Catalyst for Advancing Scientific Knowledge

Posted on August 2, 2017August 13, 2019 by Staff Writer

The power of undergraduate research in the development of science is underestimated, according to two leading professors. “Unfair biases lead to the undervaluation of the role of such research in the advancement of knowledge,” David S. Rovnyak and George C. Shields write. In fact, Inside Higher ED states that when people discuss undergraduate research, they tend to focus on the benefits for students and not what contributions the students make to help better the field. Student participation helps “build critical-thinking skills, foster a foundation for the scientific process and create hands-on classroom experiences” is banded about all too often. Although this statement is true, educators say this thought-process excludes the power of undergraduate research as a catalyst for the advancement of scientific knowledge.

A Sad Truth About Undergraduate Research

As in most industries, the scientific community throws its nose up at young upstarts and tends to dismiss their findings—unless they are backed up by a seasoned professional—even if their research is undeniable.

A recent study by Michelle Kovarik—an assistant professor at Trinity College—documented 52 articles by mainly undergraduate institutions between 2009 and 2015 that “made advances throughout analytical chemistry such as in spectroscopy, microfluidics and electrochemistry.” In an August 2016 special edition of Polyhedron—one of science’s leading peer-review publications—, “over 60 articles published were based on undergraduate research, and reported scientific advances throughout inorganic chemistry.”

Real Scientific Results at Undergrad Institutions

Meanwhile, Insider Higher ED surveyed the h-index at Bucknell University last year. “The h-index measures the citations and influence of a scholar’s publications, of chemistry faculty from 22 highly selective undergraduate institutions to determine the impact of their research,” the website notes. Results proved that assistant professors had values between five and 15, associate and full professors increasing to high teens and 20s. Notably, some faculty had higher scores.

In 1993, George Shields had a paper published on hydrogen bonding in the Journal of Computational Chemistry. It had been cited many times since. However, many other undergraduates have had their research published or even won awards for the groundbreaking findings. What’s more, the research these undergraduates have done came about with the use of considerably inferior facilities compared to those that the “big guns” use. They also faced harder and more challenges. And it was difficult for them to get their research published.

Is there Hope for Those Doing Undergraduate Research?

“Some researchers believed a manuscript was more likely to be declined from high-profile journals without review because of their institution. While speculative, some investigators perceived that if the same manuscript had been submitted under the name of their former Ph.D. laboratory, it would have more likely proceeded to peer review,” Inside Higher ED writes. “Also, researchers at undergraduate institutions have experienced negative feedback on grant applications and manuscripts that [were] not based on the findings or the data, but rather on the involvement of undergraduates. This work can’t be done by undergraduates” is heard all too often.”

However, it’s not all doom and gloom for undergraduates doing undergraduate research. If they can get their voice heard at the undergrad stage, they will most likely be set in science for life. Arguably, undergrads have many opportunities at their disposal to help them achieve the almost-impossible.

Other Details on the Matter

“Undergraduate institutions offer the ability to focus on fundamental research at a time when grants and funding are offered with the expectation of specific and highly applied returns on investment.”

What’s more, undergraduate institutions are under less pressure to create intellectual property, set-up startups or partner with the private sector. Although these partnerships do still develop out of productivity and workmanship, there’s no real pressure to do so.

Higher education in the U.S. is undoubtedly well-known for its diversity. Undergraduate colleges are now teaming up with Ph.D.-funded institutions to gain a unique perspective or to toss around ideas with a younger, less inhibited mind. Furthermore, faculty members joining undergraduate facilities can work on projects and conduct their research in less controlled environments, which is better for both staff and their students. It gives them more freedom to try out new things, experiment and get creative with research topics.

Collaboration Is Key Today and Tomorrow

There’s no doubt that the power of undergraduate research in the development of science is underestimated. However, as the science community slowly recognizes the importance of undergraduate research within its own community, it can only get better for everyone concerned. Experts claim that the key for science to move forward is to allow undergraduates to work with research institutions more. Instead of a culture of competition, collaborations are a healthier option for students and teachers alike.

Undergraduates aren’t just the scientists of tomorrow. It has been proven time and time again that they are also the scientists of today.

Day: August 2, 2017