Rocket engine and bamboo frame – Bikes for Tomorrow children's painting competition
Show us the bike of the future!
With this challenge, we called on young artists aged 8 to 14 as part of the Bikes for Tomorrow children's painting competition to put their designs for the ideal bike of tomorrow on paper.
What should it look like? What should it be able to do? What should the bicycle industry consider when developing new bikes?
Children are the cyclists of tomorrow. So why not just let children design what the ideal bike of the future looks like?
Based on this legitimate question, we, coolmobility GmbH and Internetstores GmbH (fahrrad.de) launched the innovative competition.
The submissions were viewed by an expert jury and rewarded with attractive prizes. In addition, the winning interior designs were even recreated live at the IAA Mobility using a 3D printer.
Overwhelming response
In fact, the expert jury, consisting of Frank Aldorf (CBO Internetstores GmbH), Dr. Ilke Heller (founder of KIDS REVOLUTION) and I had a lot to do when reviewing the contributions - we received an incredible number of letters. I took a lot of time to look at, select and develop the individual designs. I was able to draw interesting insights from the submissions:
Children think much more sustainably than adults. Natural materials such as bamboo, water or plants are often used.
I am also impressed by how intensively the children dealt with the topic and how problem-solving the suggestions are:
How do I create more security? How do I protect myself from bad weather when cycling? And quite clearly: How do I create more space for cycling?
People intuitively switch to water or air, or the bikes are equipped with features such as springs or jet propulsion.
Give us more space to cycle!
I see the strikingly often appearing tools to create alternative options for bicycles away from the roads as a kind of cry for help. The statement is very clear: “We want to cycle more, but we have far too little space for it!” And indeed: according to a study, the space required by cycle paths in relation to cars, pedestrians: indoors and parking spaces clearly proves this with 3% of the entire space Bottom light.
Just for comparison: parking spaces alone take up almost 6 times as much space.
What is particularly important to me here is to take the children's wishes seriously and I see a very clear appeal to politicians: more space for cycling.
Who won? All!
The task of narrowing it down to three winning entries was anything but easy for us given the many creative ideas. Ultimately, this was mastered and the winners were rewarded with, among other things, an eBike from S'COOL .
Children inspire through creativity and sustainability
We agree that children between the ages of 8 and 14 already have very good antennae for the challenges of today.
The designs range from high-tech tools such as fingerprint sensors, built-in drones and button jump triggers to natural designs with components made from plants and even rocket-powered bicycles.
I am touched by the many sustainable suggestions that put nature at the forefront: frames made of bamboo, leaves as a canopy or a wheel made entirely of flowers. This is a sign that children are very aware of how we use our resources and that sustainable design and action is important to them.
I have to smile about the question of whether one can draw conclusions about the artists based on the designs: what is striking is that boys are more likely to have the technical details in their heads and girls, in contrast, put nature in the foreground.
Finally, I can only say that it was really fun to be part of this campaign and we are continuing to think about how we can extend this campaign together with Internetstores. Stay tuned!
