Precor RBK 800 Recumbent
My goal was to create a riding experience that was comfortable, inclusive of all riders, and provided an efficient workout. I'm particularly proud of this piece, and its rather natural, non-arbitrary design gesture, imparted by the flowing tubular steel frame that extends from console to seat structure. The tube frame encircles a well-defined exerciser area, trimmed in darker color materials to reduce apparent wear, and positions the digital console appropriately for our full range of users.
The success of this bike hinged on a resolution to an issue endemic to recumbent riding: seat back support and comfort. By evaluating a range of potential solutions along a fair value graph, the injection molded seat back was shown to be superior to all other configurations. The "back-end" effort of actually designing the correct form for the seat back, and working tightly with my engineering peers to craft an efficient, strong, and aesthetically confident seat carriage assembly, was the major portion of this product's overall success with users and customers. The fact that we delivered this unit and its Upright counterpart in Precor-record time is attributed to the great collaboration with my engineering and PM colleagues.
I was responsible for initial product scope, product architecture, user study and ergonomic conclusions, final surfacing in SolidWorks, final seat shape and pattern design, color/material/finish, and communicating design intent to multiple vendors.
We developed a reliable if RAM-intensive process for iterating on the seat back perforation pattern. Manually build a repeating slot pattern, Envelope Distort, maneuver the holes into the overall contour, Expand back to vectors, clean up odd-sized perf, and export DXF to SolidWorks. Use Fillet Expert to hopefully create rounds. This was obviously not rapid, but it turned out to be a reliable method.
Working prototype with FDM Seat back, hand-sculpted seat base. The back went on to be injection molded PP, whereas the base is self-skinning urethane.
Comparing 'value' against cost with heuristic analysis, assigning a score, and testing the results against known manufacturing trade-offs, resulted in the choice of an injection molded seat back and tubular steel seat frame. While more expensive in capital outlay, the part price paid for the tool in a short duration, and customer/user value was no comparison.
