Freiker + Dero = More Hiking and Biking at Seward Montessor
Dero Bike Racks
By Kathy Kurdelmeier
Dero Bike Racks in the Seward neighborhood has paired up with Seward Montessori, a Minneapolis Public School, to make the school the most walked and biked to school in the city… maybe the state.
Dero Bike Racks has donated a Freiker/Dero ZAP system to the school, a system designed to encourage kids to bike and walk to school. Freiker (frequent + biker, rhymes with hiker) a non profit company out of Boulder, Colorado, pioneered the concept using RFID technology. Dero Bike Racks manufactures the ZAP unit. The system is the first to be used in a Minnesota school, one of a only dozen throughout the country.
Each registered student is given a RFID (radio frequency identification) tag. Each time the student walks or bikes to school they pass under the ZAP unit, which emits a beep and records their trip and mileage into the Freiker database.
That information will be used to provide incentives to individuals and classes that walk and bike the most. The school also hopes to incorporate the information into the classroom, teaching the students about their carbon footprint and the benefit of walking and biking to themselves as well as to the environment.
Close to 100 students have registered within the first three weeks of school and new concrete has been poured to accommodate new bike racks and all the bikes. On, Wednesday, Sept. 16, the Freiker/ZAP unit system was unveiled at media event at the school with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak present to welcome the kids as they walked and biked to school.
The unit is mounted on the east side of Seward Montessori, located at 2309 28 Ave. South in Minneapolis. Further information can be found about the Freiker system and about the ZAP unit.
