Urban bikers need a way to get other people’s attention to keep everyone safe because bells and yelling are stressful and ineffective.
Biking in a densely populated city like New York can feel like the most difficult level of a video game. Even when there are designated bike lanes, pedestrians often overflow from sidewalks, walking or standing in the bike lane, completely unaware of cyclists moving rapidly toward them. Bells are often too quiet or ubiquitous for people to hear and pay attention to, and yelling causes stress levels to rise and creates opportunities for conflict.
Traveling by bicycle can also be hazardous for pedestrians and cyclists ahead because it’s so quiet.
Our solution is a device that does the talking for us. Mounted onto the handlebars of a bicycle, it will have two settings: friendly and aggressive. On the friendly setting sleigh bells play as a pleasant way to alert those around the biker of their presence. On the aggressive setting a kookaburra (something not often heard in New York City) sound effect plays to alert those ahead.
Bells & Yells has two modes of use. The first uses an IR sensor to detect how far away objects are from the cyclist. This sensor can play sounds automatically so that the biker doesn’t have to. When someone is within the range of the sensor it will begin by playing friendly sleigh bells to try and alert them. When they are too close though, it will play the kookaburra sound to get their attention. On the manual setting, the user can choose which of the two sound effects is playing. By pressing the green button, the user plays the friendly sound and by pressing the red button they play the aggressive sound.
