ShockWiz Project
Client SRAM / Quarq
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 began development on the product. Nigel sold the product to SRAM and continued development.
EEA was contracted by SRAM to undertake electronics and firmware design, calibration, testing and app development.
Prototypes
Early development started off with a 'Frankenstein' prototyping 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 whiteboard 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 range of mountain bikers.
Electronic design was undertaken 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 us in Perth.
Product testing
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 measurements and a ShockWiz's calibration sent it from Python over BLE.
The 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 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 the line test and calibration unit along with a fully automated continuous integration unit.
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.
