ALTA OneWheel Carrier

EXPERIENCE AND RACK ATTACHMENT DESIGN

Hi, my name is Seth. I’m currently a high school senior and have been an intern at ALTA
Racks for most of this school year. I enjoy any activity where I can create something
cool and/or functional; this includes things like 3d printing and painting miniatures. I go
camping often with my family, where we usually do plenty of mountain biking and other
outdoor activities.

Throughout high school, I have participated in many engineering-related classes and
extracurriculars, including FIRST robotics and a few engineering classes at my school,
including a CAD class. I plan to continue in engineering after high school; I have already
been accepted to the University of Utah’s College of Engineering and plan to begin
studying mechanical engineering this fall.

ABOUT MY INTERNSHIP

At my high school, every student does an internship before they graduate. When I was
looking for one, I came across and was interested in the possibility of an internship at
ALTA Racks. Though I already had experience in engineering, I didn’t have any idea
what working as an engineer would be like, if I would enjoy it, or what the professional
design process looked like. I knew an ALTA internship would be a great place to start,
and I was excited to fully design a product myself that meets the standards of an actual
business.

My internship at ALTA Racks turned out to be better than I expected. I learned many
things and became more confident in my plans to be an engineer. Probably the most
important thing I learned in my internship is the importance of laying out requirements
for something before designing. This allowed for whatever design I came up with to be
made to the requirements of the product and require minimal modification. More on the
technical side, this internship gave me a lot of experience and knowledge relating to
SolidWorks; though I had done CAD before, it was with a less powerful program.

I enjoyed all of the work I did for my internship at ALTA, but there were some difficulties
along the way. The hardest part was balancing the work I needed to do for my
internship with all of my classes and other obligations. Many times, my internship was
the thing I’d rather do, but I didn’t always have much time to do it due to a test or project
I had to do for school. Another difficulty came from the CAD program, SolidWorks,
whose minor problems clashed with my inexperience to create a disastrous effect a few
times. In the end, it turned out to be a good lesson in the merit of the simplification and
optimization of the design process.

THE ONEWHEEL CARRIER

For my internship, I created a carrier for a OneWheel that would attach to any of ALTA’s
standard bike racks. This idea came from the lack of a good way to transport a
OneWheel. I know from experience that trying to take your OneWheel places can be
inconvenient, as it tends to roll over whenever you take a turn. Trying to take one with
you on camping trips can be impossible with the amount of other gear you have in your
vehicle. This is where the OneWheel Carrier idea comes in: something that can attach
outside your car on your bike rack negates all of these issues.

When it came to possible designs for the OneWheel Carrier, I made sketches of quite a
few, each of which could hold the OneWheel in one of several orientations. In the end, 
settled on a diagonal orientation, as it would minimize both the horizontal and vertical
extension of the OneWheel’s board and optimize mounting in different locations across
the rack. Essentially, a vertical design was best for mounting on one side of the rack,
while vertical didn’t work at all for the other side. A balance between the two allows both
mounting positions to be as effective and convenient as possible.

The intricacies of the OneWheel Carrier were made with many things in mind. For one,
the Carrier is designed to hold any of OneWheel’s current models, from the Pint series
to the much larger GT and even some older models no longer in production. The Carrier
will also be able to be mounted in one of six placement-orientation combinations,
including on the ALTA GPP, allowing you to mount it in the best way for you. The straps
used by the Carrier will allow you to easily secure your OneWheel and easily remove it
to ride. The four bolts used to attach the carrier to the rack will hold it securely while
allowing it to be easily removed to make room for winter accessories or whatever else
you may need.

The ALTA OneWheel Carrier is made to work with any combination of OneWheel model
and ideal mounting configuration you might have, making it a one-of-a-kind, versatile
product that can take your adventures a step further.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlj8TdX3tc4 

Subscribe to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@altaracks

Check out our website at: https://www.altaracks.com/