Dr Tim Drysale explains the LED bike wheel design

Commonwealth cyclists will be taking to the streets of Glasgow on 3 August for the road race in what should be a dazzling display of athleticism.

Should any of the riders wish to dazzle a little more, three students at the University of Glasgow have the perfect cycle accessory.

Students Ben Ferguson, David Millar and Jamie Nicol have created a strip of 48 three-colour LED lights spread across a single spoke of a bicycle wheel which creates the illusion of a solid picture in the middle of the wheel.

‌Dr Tim Drysdale, who suggested the challenge and oversaw the students' work as part of their final year project, said: "The display takes advantage of the phenomenon of persistence of vision, which makes it possible to create the illusion of a solid circle in the middle of the wheel by rotating a single strip of lights very quickly. By changing the colour of the lights as they rotate, the circle can be made to display a chosen image."‌

The project was inspired by MonkeyLectric's revolutionary bike lighting systems, but expanded it to fill the whole wheel so as to provide the students with a challenging real-world electronics problem.

Dr Drysdale added: "The aim of these projects is to demonstrate all the skills they have learned during their degree, which includes a 6 month international industrial placement. I was really delighted with the outcome - the students were very talented and they worked extremely hard to achieve this impressive result."‌

The wheel will be on display at the University's upcoming student open days on August 6, September 3 and October 25.

The public display version of the wheel, as pictured, was built by electronics technician Andrew Phillips in 2014.

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Find out more

• Dr Tim Drysdale
• School of Engineering

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First published: 1 August 2014