zaterdag 7 mei 2011

The smoby be fun trike review

We just bought a cool tricycle for Timothy, a Smoby - "be fun trike" (what kind of name is that?).He loves it and is happy with it, check out the how he even bought flowers for mommy on his second ride, awwww. 



Anyway cool features why we bought it:
  • Lockable front wheel 
  • Pedals can turn freely or power the front wheel 
  • A push bar 
  • Adjustable seating 
  • Price :) about 30 eur

What did you say?
So far the good stuff, now comes one of the major cons... it noisy! Using my highly effective and trustworthy iPhone decibell app it maxed out at 84 dB and on average it was around 80 dB. To put it in perspective, sitting in a room quietly listening to music is around 55 dB. Ok so maybe that's not the best example since one person's quiet music is not the other. Well according to this website: noisy website, it's about the noise level of a diesel train traveling 60 km/h at a 30 meter distance. Now that's usually no problems outdoors, but you do get a lot of looks, and you hear it all the time. So this looks like a great project for household tweaking. So to approach it scientifically we have our problem description:

Problem description
Smoby be fun trike has a >80 dB noise level while moving on the side-walk 

Hypothesis
Given that all 3 tyres are made out of hardplastic and there is no suspension what so ever, these are problably the biggest noise makers. Then again there is this cool bucket at the back that can be used to lug things around. This bucket is directly connected to the rear wheel base causing it to pick up all the vibrations of the wheels and amplifying it with its big spherical surface. 
H1 - The hard plastic tyres are the main noise makers 
H2 - The bucket at the back is the second biggest noise maker 

Goal 
Get the noise level down by 10 dB

Solution
Ideas anyone?