Izhar Cardboard Bike Project

It is always exciting to take materials and then turn them into something completely different, something useful. Bicycles are my hobby. That's what I do in my free time. It's in my soul. One of the times that I had to buy some parts, I went to the bicycle shop. And then they were talking, and we heard about the guy who built a canoe (a boat) out of cardboard. I went home, and it disturbed me: this canoe made of cardboard was sitting in the back of my head and I couldn't let go. Suddenly it just struck my mind: Why not make a bicycle out of cardboard? Soon after, I talked to the three engineers (工程师) who I really highly appreciate. And they said, it's impossible. There's no way it can be done. While I was eating with my wife one day, she noticed I was a little bit disturbed. And then she asked me, "What's bugging you?" I told her all the things about the cardboard, the canoe and all the engineers I went to, and the things that they said ... ...that it's impossible, and then she looked at me and gave me that look, and then she said, "I know you... ...if you're not going to try it, then you're going to drive yourself crazy, then you're going to drive me crazy. Then you're going to drive the entire family crazy. So just go ahead and try it. Very soon I realized that there is no actual know-how (知识) needed to work with the cardboard besides making packages out of it. So I started to explore it, and then I figured out a lot of things about it. Basically, the idea is like Japanese Origami. Fold it once, then it doesn't have twice the strength. It's almost three times the strength. So I took it from there, and basically did the same thing with cardboard. My first operational prototype (原型) looked like a hybrid (杂交) between a packaging box and sort of a bicycle. So it was a package on wheels pretty much. Then I realized, it had to look like a real bicycle. How to take this cardboard box and turn it into an ordinary bicycle? That's when the real challenge started! I did a lot of things in my life: Working with robots (机器人) With stents (支架), electromechanic machinery (机电) and I basically took everything I knew and focused it to work with that material to accomplish what I wanted to do. Wheel structure (构造), frame design (设计) and strength translation parts, cardboard seat. And then things started to click together. Have fun! It's strong, it's durable (结实), it's cheap. What I like about it the most IT'S MADE OUT OF CARDBOARD!!!