Designing a pedal powered phone charger

Hi EE,


My friends and I are in our final year of upper secondary school and have to start a company. We have decided that we want to create a charger powered by a dynamo on your bike that charges anything that can access a USB port. We have little to no experience in engineering and now we rely on you guys if this project will ever become a reality.

Is it a feasible idea cost wise at all?

We'd like to do produce the chargers ourselves by hand and how should we go about, which tools are necessary?

Do you have any software you recommend where we can design the product?

Where can we buy parts for the lowest price possible?

We don't know where to begin and help would be highly appreciated. I'm not sure exactly which type of question this is so excuse me if I'm in the wrong area.


Thanks!
Will

Hi,

I think this has already been done. There are patents for some of the designs make like this. But there are also some that you can do just for a hobby. You can check some of them:
* "Pedal Power Generator("")":https://www.k-tor.com/pedal-powered-generator/
* "Pedal Powered Charger("")":http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-Powered-Battery-Charger/

Cheers,
Kevin