ShockWiz Project
End to End Consumer Product Design
In 2015 Element Engineering Australia was engaged by entrepreneur and mountain bike enthusiast Nigel Wade to help him develop a new device for mountain bikes.
The device was envisaged to help all mountain bikers gain more enjoyment from their ride.
Ayrton Sue, EEA Managing Director, also a fellow mountain bike enthusiast, can be seen with Nigel in an early marketing video on Kickstarter.
After successfully raising funds to help bring the project to life, EEA and Nigel got to work on developing the product.
Nigel then sold the product to SRAM and continued development.
EEA was contracted by SRAM to undertake Electronics Design, Firmware Design, Calibration, Testing and App Development.
Early development started off with a 'Frankenstein' prototype of off-the-shelf development kits wired together.
Initial design and testing of the firmware was undertaken by Ayrton and Nigel on Ayrton's mountain bike.
Early white board layouts of the app somewhat resemble the consumer app that ended up in full production.
Nigel and the EEA team undertook the entire UX design with heavy input from a large range of mountain bikers.
Electronic design was undertaken in parallel with firmware and app development in house at EEA.
EEA collaborated with Mechanical and Industrial designers at SRAM in Chicago to package the electronics.
Mechanical prototypes were machined by SRAM.
First circuit boards were placed by hand at EEA with the first twenty working prototypes assembled and tested by EEA in Perth.
ShockWiz was ALIVE!
Of course, the product needed testing!
Chad, firmware and testing engineer from SRAM Quarq visited EEA for 2 weeks to help build the first end-of-line Test and Calibration system.
EEA took some time to show him some of WA's finest mountain bike trails in Pemberton...
The first calibration and test rig was automated by a Python program actuating high pressure air valves.
A precision sensor was used to take pressure measurements and a ShockWiz's calibration was sent to it from Python over BLE.
This rig was successfully used to calibrate all 500+ KickStarter devices.
After industrial design and two prototypes later, the ShockWiz took on the form it went to market in.
The app was getting very close to what it was at product launch.
Ayrton, Kevin and Sam from EEA, along with Nigel traveled to Quarq to finish the final sprint of development. And of course... there was ride testing!
The EEA team helped commission the end of line test and calibration unit along with a fully automated continuous integration unit (seen right).
The ShockWiz officially went to market in March 2017, and was a resounding success.
The device was extremely well received by the market, and sold out within weeks.
EEA continues to support SRAM with Electronics, Firmware and App development.
More About EEA
Element Engineering Australia was founded in 2010 by Ayrton Sue primarily as a Mechanical Engineering Consultancy specializing in advanced structural analysis.
Today, EEA has Mechanical, Electronic and Software Engineering teams and services
Product Design is Our Speciality
EEA's specialty has become development of products from ground up, with our clients.
With boiler-making background we can undertake design through manufacture of mechanical structures. And with our electronic and software skills, we can build IoT Systems.
Multi-discipline Team
With the introduction of specialized electronics engineering and software development teams, EEA can develop mechanical products that are monitored and actuated by smart electronic and software systems.
EEA aim's to build smart mechanical systems to bring the products we work on to the forefront of their domains.
Contact Details
5 Carson Road
Malaga, Western Australia
Australia, 6090
+61 8 6262 1111