meetdotdot is an electric pushbike

dotdot gives me (philcampbell) choices regarding transportation.  in 2010 my world fell apart and i felt like everything just vanished overnight.  my relationship, job, car and eventually my house vanished.   some of it self induced some of it because i was in the wrong place and the wrong time and some of it bad decisions.  i moved away from where i was living and moved to nottingham in search of more opportunities in my line of work.

my daughter, which is the most crucial part of this whole story and in which my whole life now revolves around lives around thirty five minutes away in burton on trent.  i commute each weekend to get her for twenty four hours.  this is never enough.  i have been experimenting with electric transport (meetcellbee) in 2012 in the hope that i could find a half way house, a happy medium if you will i tested and then rented the ev smart car from cenex and drive multiple times, testing the range between nottingham and burton giving me extra time within the week with my daughter who is four (as of april 2012 – soon to be five in may) and a joy to be around.

during the testing phase of meetcellbee i was shocked about how we no longer have many spaces that are actually free to just drive and park up in.  everything, regarding space appears to have a price.  i have not driven for over two years as that was the period i had to just let go of it all.  i had no finances to maintain anything i owned.  i went from a £35k well paid job per year to next nothing and the dole in a very rapid period.

dotdot as i have called it has a name (like cellbee) because i wish to think of the things i own as having a story, so that people indirectly can relate to the story and not just see the transport as an item, as a thing.  more of a story as to what it does, where it goes and why it exists.  in doing the cellbee project it was interesting to see how people reacted to the electric car by giving it a name and it was the first word that people would say.  my daughter also liked the idea of the car having a personality – she often asked when it was charging in the car park where HE was.

the electric pushbike gives me a few more options than i currently have in that i have the ability now to get via the trainlines from burton station to my daughters mothers home to pick ella up if needed from time to time, the proposed location of my temporary caravan (as i work towards getting ark.me.dm of the ground) which is seven miles away from burton station and for getting myself back and forth between the train station, the studio(s) and the swimming baths and gym.

owning, leasing or renting a car (like cellbee for instance) would be great but it does come with an expensive monthly outlay which effectively would give me bigger options for transportation.  currently i’m helping out as a volunteer and i do have a small advocacy with a company that pays me enough to get technology, gadgets and food that i need each month and allow me to spend quality time each weekend with my daughter.   i know however, that i can optimise that more.

the name dotdot came about from fusing together the name of the owners of the bike companies daughters name with the idea that the electric bike will be heavily used to get from place to place, or dot to dot on a gps, digital map.  we aim to kit the bike out with lots of digital equipment for tracking, streaming web cameras and experiment with in wheel usb charging equipment – the bike will be the centrepiece for travelling around a local area.

we hope you’ll watch along and please fire any questions our way that you may have.