Hello all! You might know me as the guy that rides around campus on the electric unicycle (EUC), but formally, my name is Alton Dillon, and I am a junior at Baker College.   I study Computer Science and plan on minoring in the Engineering Design minor.  At Rice, I am part of the Rice Bikes team to help people fix their bikes, as well as the Rice Rock Climbing Club to expel some energy on the boulders.

Ever since coming to Houston, I have always been a fan of micro-mobility devices like bikes, scooters, skateboards, etc.  Driving in the city has always been a pain due to traffic, so using a smaller, lightweight electric vehicle to get around seemed more fun, economical, and environmentally friendly.  With this obsession, one thing I am proud of making was a custom ebike. With this, I could stop showing up to campus drenched in sweat from a long commute and cruise to campus in a breeze. I used a foldable bike frame I bought online, and added a mid-drive motor and battery to give the bike some electrical assistance. However, since this foldable bike only had 20 inch tires, due to the gearing, I could only hit 28 mph on it with full throttle.

Custom ebike with Bafang BBS02 motor

Since building this bike, I have always wanted more speed.  The electric unicycles I typically ride around on can get me that speed I want (some can go 55mph+) but it is hard to carry cargo on them due to their small size.  With this, I hope to learn how to work with metal, possibly welding, to be able to build a custom bike/motorcycle/EUC frame that can hold a large battery and additional cargo space so I can go anywhere!

Through ENGI 210, I hope to learn some manufacturing and prototyping skills, especially CAD modeling, so I can design custom parts and hopefully be able to get closer to building my dream micro-mobility machine.