The bicycle is perhaps the most exquisite thing man has made. For the past 13 years we have had a hand-built bicycle curriculum. Yes, I believed I died and went to heaven when the first student asked me, “can we meet to figure out what kind of bike I will make?“ And then there is all the frame-building that happens around building bicycles for long distance cycling events.

Students in art and science and engineering create knowledge through building things. Making is a basic currency of explanation and description in art-science practice, where the emphasis is on the building and process elements of experimentation.

There is an interesting shift in emphasis from the experimental as a knowledge-site to the experimental as a social and design process, something art has always been about. In this shift in epistemic culture, the deploying of research, tool and fabrication for purposeful outcomes and devices is valued for the generation of knowledge, in process.

Design, build, ride your bike generates knowledge.