Going out with family or friends is the spice of life. Going skiing, hitting the beach or maybe fishing at a secret spot on the river - it's the best. Except carrying everything there. Until we have hoverbikes or robot servants, getting from A to B is difficult. Especially if A stands for "At the end of the Road" and B stands for 'Bad idea by Car'. In other words, you have to walk with all your stuff.
A wheeled cart might seem like a simple solution. Anything but. Have you have had to pull a wheeled cart over sand? It's almost futile. How about a difficult trail? Not too easy either. But what is this term 'difficult engineering problem' mean to the GrabCAD Community? A design challenge best solved by crowdsourcing.
Essentially, you must come up with "a sleek, collapsible cart that will transport equipment for outdoor recreation such as beach outings, camping, fishing, hunting, skiing, over varied and difficult terrain, such as sand, snow, ice, mud, and pavement.". The difficulty is that you must not use wheels alone - even if they're huge balloon wheels. That is a big no-no because it is so heavily used and patented, so something more creative has to be submitted. We tried our very best to find the right images to show alternative means of locomotion - there are a million more out there, waiting to be thought up.
And your thoughts, as explained through CAD, will be handsomely rewarded. We have $3,500 in cash prizes for the winner, including a $2,000 award for first prize! All the entries will be private - if you have a winning idea, be comforted by the fact you get to keep your trade secret (feel free to show it off after the Challenge is done, by the way). Yes, the client wishes to remain unnamed - confidentiality in product development is vital in business. No, this isn't the Military (although how cool would that be? Imagine what the Security Clearance badge would look like?)
Deadline is in a month. Luckily for a number of GrabCADrs of certain faiths and nationalities, there is a long holiday to contemplate possible solutions and tinker away on your computer. For some in the Northern Hemisphere, plenty of snow to brood over. For those in the South, plenty of Summer sand to 'experiment' with. Engineers can rarely enjoy a vacation, depending on how you define 'enjoy'.
Good luck!
