Sblock (Smart Bike Lock)

The smart lock is a fresh take on the traditional bike lock, that allows you to unlock your bike with the tap of your phone and an array of sensors detects your lock being cut or a bike crash

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Inspiration

Growing up in Palo Alto, California, a city where biking is a way of life, we experienced firsthand the frustrations and challenges of bike theft and accidents. These personal experiences became the catalyst for our innovation: the Smart Bike Lock. Our goal was to enhance the traditional bike lock, making it not only more safe and secure but also more convenient.

What it does

The Smart Bike Lock is a leap forward from conventional locks. Its key feature is the ease of locking and unlocking via a smartphone, eliminating the hassle of remembering combinations or keys. This feature particularly addresses the common issue of being too lazy or forgetful to properly secure a bike.

To further increase security, we integrated a piezo vibration module capable of detecting a wide range of frequencies. This allows the lock to sense when it's being tampered with and trigger an alarm. This module also serves a dual purpose in enhancing rider safety through its crash detection capability.

How we built it

Our electronic stack comprises:

  • Arduino Uno
  • NFC/RFID reader
  • Solenoid
  • Piezo vibration module
  • 2 9V Batteries

We programmed the electronics using C and designed a custom CAD model for the bike lock. This model was then brought to life through 3D printing, creating a housing for the electronics and the solenoid locking mechanism.

Challenges we ran into

The most daunting challenge was debugging the circuit. Due to the fragile nature of small electronic components, fixing one issue often led to another. This was compounded by the unreliability of some RFID/NFC readers and MCUs, which failed without clear reasons. Much of our time was spent meticulously verifying wiring to rule out connection issues.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We take immense pride in successfully developing a functional MVP with working electronics, achieved in a short period and with a team of just two. We are also proud of being able to hack together a product that took parts from lots of different places, from a random bike lock on the street to digging for parts deep in the hardware bins. This was also our first-ever hackathon for both of us and we were equally proud of our ability to just finish a design.

What we learned

While obvious in hindsight, we learned that 36 hours is not a lot of time. We were too ambitious with how many features we wanted to incorporate and ended up having to cut out a lot of features. Simple is also better because it makes debugging much easier.

What's next for Smart Lock

We hope to iron out some of the reliability and power issues we have as well as implement the full suite of sensors we initially planned such as a GPS for location tracking, laser for nighttime biker recognition, and sending this sensor data to the cloud so that it be can be used to learn your bike locking habits to automatically lock and unlock.

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