The quest for bridging the mobility gap between walking speed and bicycling has spawned (and still does) a variety of different products on both the domestic and international market. Yet, none so far has been gained broad acceptance or became a commercial success. Rollerblades, skateboards and the likes require considerable driving skills, while basic kick-scooters and its variations carry the image of children’s toys, and are neither appealing visually nor functionally. However, in view of the rapidly growing popularity of electric bicycles, and certain stigmas overcome by practicality such as in the case of backpacks now carried even over business attire, the timing seems perfect for a fresh attempt to enhance basic personal mobility with an eco-friendly, practical, attractive and affordable product of broad multiple utilization. Providing physical exercise (by kicking) combined with operational convenience and added speed (through electric assist) appears to be a winning combination – as long as all technical, ergonomic and logistical aspects are appropriately considered and resolved. For those reasons, the ‘Turbo Scooter’ (for lack of a better term) has to fulfill a stringent list of criteria. Approach: From a number of possible alternative project approaches including contract R&D, one emerged as a particularly intriguing option, identified as: Student Competition by Special Invitation to a total of five international universities with renown educational programs in Design, Engineering and Business.

• Prof. Jan Vietze (Projektleitung)

• Iowa State University Ames, Iowa, USA
• The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, USA
• Shih-Chien University Taipei, Taiwan
• Moholy-Nagy University Budapest, Hungary
• University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, Germany

http://id.htw-berlin.de/projekte/