Bright Bike, the Automated Alert System for Bikers and Drivers

Practically everywhere that I need to get to, including school, I bike to. It is a great way to wake up in the morning not to mention the other benefits over driving. Unfortunately, though, there is always that small group of drivers that does not like to share the road and it can get especially dangerous at night or on narrow roads. While I could get back at the drivers by mounting strobe lights on the back of my bike or pedaling as slowly as possible that does not seem to be the best solution for a number of reasons. While thinking about ways to combat this I noticed the large number of great bike light projects on Instructables. Thats when I decided to build this project and to step up the game of ordinary flashing red lights. From an Arduino that I have recently fallen in love with (bet you've never heard that one before) and an Ultrasonic sensor came Bright Bike which would control the amount of light that a driver sees depending on how close he or she drives to me.

After some searching on the web and plenty of impatient waiting for packages to arrive I was finally able to connect and control 17 LEDs and an Ultrasonic sensor in a show of lights. 

Now enough talking and more constructing...

Step 1: Materials

One of the nice things about this project that I found was that most of these parts are extremely common allowing them to be purchased from virtually any electronics/hobby website or store.

Materials:
1x Arduino Uno

17x 5mm LED
4 each of Red, Green, Yellow, Blue. You will also need an additional 17th for your handle bars. A diffused LED will be a little less jarring for your eyes. Make sure than none of them draw more than 40mA. These are available through most every electronics website. You can also buy them at Radio Shack, although, in my experience they always cost a little more in a pysical location versus an online store.

17x Resistors
A helpful resistor calculator can be found here. Allelectronics has a great selection page to choose from.

1x Container
Homedepot has a number of cheap and sturdy options or Allelectronics which is what I used. Make sure to buy something at least a  1/4 bigger than the Arduino in each direction. The one that I used fit a little to snuggly.

1x Perf board

22 AWG wire
One color should be fine and you will not need more than a couple of feet.

1x Ultrasonic Proximity sensor
There a number of options depending on what kind of range you want, but I used this one from Sparkun which has a range of 6.45 meters.

1x Switch It should not need to carry more than an amp and should be capable of 9v. Try to get one with a neck like this and two legs, however this particular switch can handle far more amps than you will ever need with this project

1x 9v Battery holder and 9v battery

Velcro, Zip ties, or some other material to attach the box to the bike. Depending on the size of your saddle bag you might be able to fit it inside of that.

Electrical Tape

D.I.Y style patience

Tools:
Soldering Iron
Dremel or some sort of similar cutting tool
Drill
Wire stripper or a knife will work

Comments

[gtoal]

I had almost the same idea last month, except the application was a little different - this can be used for cycle training where riders have to keep tight drafting formation in an echelon. You just need to have a visual indication that the following bicycle is within a certain distance plus or minus of the target separation between bikes.

[Hammock Boy]

I hadn't thought about that, but that is a great idea. Perhaps having a different color correspond to a particular distance?

[gtoal]

If the light defaults to on and full brightness for anything 10 ft or more behind, then dims as the person approaches until it goes off once they get to closest safe distance, that would work pretty well as both a distance indicator for the following cyclist and as a taillight, because you don't want the bright taillight to be on when your nose is 3 ft away from it :-) - it would be dazzling (as you'll find out if you draft anyone with a magicshine taillight). In that case the rearmost cyclist will have his taillight on to alert any vehicles behind.

[Hammock Boy]

In that case you could probably find a cheaper sensor if it is only going 10ft. I might also remove a few of the LEDs also, because at 25ft I definitely would not want to be looking straight forward or even from a slight angle at those 5mm LEDs

[Hammock Boy]

In that case you could probably find a cheaper sensor if it is only going 10ft. I might also remove a few of the LEDs also, because at 25ft I definitely would not want to be looking straight forward or even from a slight angle at those 5mm LEDs

[golddigger1559]

your just asking to be abducted by aliens :p

[Hammock Boy]

I wish

[Hammock Boy]

Thanks. I am hoping to get a second version out with significantly more LEDs and perhaps some sort of automated horn, although, it might just end up scaring the biker.

[kd1s]

Nice build!

Me, I'm more the in your face type so bright strobes do it for me. No need for microcontrollers, just some HV to trip the tube and a 555 timer.

I suppose I could incorporated an Arduino to throw caltrops down if they get too close. :)