BME Senior Combines Cycling with 3D Printing
For the first few years of college, Spencer Ciammitti raced mountain bikes professionally around the country as part of the Bear National Team. Now, he’s a biomedical engineering major and the vice president of the University of Arizona cycling team, where he helps with the mountain bike program. He is also a member of the Medical Device Club, formerly serving as the outreach coordinator.
During the pandemic, Ciammitti took a BME course that involved using 3D printers in the Peter and Nancy Salter Medical Device Design Lab. He was fascinated by the process of going from computer design to a physical object so quickly, and – stuck inside during the pandemic – bought his own printer for a few hundred dollars to experiment with at home.
He recently designed a product called Stealth Tag, which allows cyclists to track the location of their bikes if they are stolen. About the size of a bottlecap, StealthTag is designed to hold an Apple AirTag, a small tracking device released in 2021. It allows users to secure and hide the tracking device in the bike’s steerer tube. Ciammitti began selling the 3D-printed device for $15 in January 2022.
How did the idea for Stealth Tag come about?
The idea really came to me a couple years ago when I got my racing bikes stolen. Us cyclists have expensive bike computers that tell us where we are on the roads and trails. I found it interesting that no one had implemented that technology into a hidden device in the bikes to track them in case they were stolen. When I got into 3D printing, the Apple AirTag system had just been released and, conveniently, they were the perfect size to hide away in a bicycle fork.
Why did you choose to major in biomedical engineering at the University of Arizona?
I chose the University of Arizona after looking at a couple schools for engineering, due to the amazing faculty, opportunities for extracurriculars, and the cycling community in Tucson, as I used to race professionally. The UA also offered a generous scholarship, which helped entice me to move. I hopped around a few different colleges at the UA before landing in biomedical engineering. I loved the math side of engineering, and the biology and chemistry of physiology. BME is the perfect blend of those two fields, and I could not be happier now that I chose it!