Gardening

Hi, my name is Dieter Magallan, I'm a design student at NSCAD and a I
want to design a wheelbarrow for gardening, specifically for seniors,
so I'm researching for the needs of all of you. I just want to ask
you some questions:

How would you design a wheelbarrow for seniors?

Florida...

Dieter, the problem was for YOU to design a wheelbarrow for seniors.
Everybody knows what a senior is, that part of your research needs
only a little refinement. You need only check to see what the physical
norms are for seniors in your part of the world.
Right now you need to familiarize yourself with what a wheelbarrow is.
Go to a farm store, a real nursery/garden store (one not staffed by
min-wage workers). They will show you.
In my opinion, the three important things about wheelbarrows are that
1) you have to stoop over then lift the load, 2) a heavy load is easily
unbalanced, 3) the single wheel is a pivot point whether you want it to
be or not (that is, striking a small object can change the direction of
the wheelbarrow).
(Note that the Garden Way Cart is a four-wheeled version of a
wheelbarrow in which the load is carried by the cart, not the user's
muscles.)

Rumpelstiltskin...

One thing that should be considered is a flat area at
the front of the wheelbarrow, so that it won't be painful
on the seniors' legs hanging over the edge.

Lawrence Akutagawa...

hmmm...I would think that a cushioned front edge would be better than a flat
one.

For myself, what would be perfect would be wheeled outriggers on both sides
like a catamaran so that the darned thing won't tip to the left or the right
under a heavy load, especially going around a corner. Kinda like those
motocrycle sidecars you don't see anymore. And if you do the design
correctly, these outriggers themselves can carry a load - just as those
motorcycle sidecars can. Have those outriggers each with capacity of 1/2
the main body, and - bingo - you can haul twice as much as with the
conventional wheelbarrow without worrying about tipping over either to the
right or to the left. Of course, to handle tight cornering you need to work
in a rudimentary differential so that the outside outrigger swings easily
around that corner while the inside one moves a lot less. And some kind of
gearing system to assist pushing the load up inclines would really
help...even a front winch so that you don't have to use brute force to get
everything up that incline would help, with a metal stake to dig into the
ground at the top of the incline to which to fasten that rope/cable.

jimstevens...

With a Mexican attached that goes home to Mexico when the barrow is
not in use.

What problems do you have with existing wheelbarrows?

Florida...

Declining strength.

jimstevens...

No operator comes with it.

What do you use your wheelbarrow for?

Florida...

Moving brick, rubble, sod, downed tree branches after a windstorm,
bales of hay, very large bags of leaves, plants in pots and flats,
moving compost materials 200' from the front of the property to the
back where the compost pile is.
All the classic materials-moving uses, but in much smaller batches
than formerly.

jimstevens...

Don't ask. The remaining liberals in the neighborhood have not
noticed some missing. shoot the whole darn flock and they will just sit there wondering why
Hal, then Gert, then Bert, then Murray, flopped over.>

Which are the tools that you use in gardening?

Florida...

You already know this from the lecture: Real gardeners use much the
same hand tools the Egyptians' ancestors used, the same ones the modern
Chinese use, but with sharper edges. While you're at the real
nursery/garden store look around. There they'll be, dull-colored,
sturdy, plain, relatively heavy. The stuff marked "!! E-Z TO USE !!",
the flimsy stuff made of aluminum or plastic and stapled to a piece of
cardboard with a lot of print and crude colors, will not be it.

jimstevens...

Real sharp ones.

Thanks to all the people that answer these questions, and if you can

Florida...

You have the usual young-man's main problem-solving skill already,
of using other people to get help with this project, and you're polite.
These are both assets.

A nice clean problem - 'can you rethink a truly ancient tool used in
the major occupation of the mankind everywhere'. The hidden problem is
that to actually do this project well - not as an exercise - you need
to get away from the computer, out of your room, and into the world.

Here is the best advice I know: find out where the office of your
municipal gardens is, then find out where these tools are sold, go out
into the real world and engage yourself in some face-to-face
discussions with real people. I realize that the time you want to
devote to a single project may be limited and that more of your time is
taken up by the usual preoccupations of young people.
There is a point however. As I interpret this assignment, you're
supposed to be learning to step away from the hands-off approach which
secondary schooling forces on you, learn to design real-world objects
by yourself, use the computer as a research tool but not the sum total
of your education, and, that life begins outside the computer room. It
takes time to travel to where real objects are kept, and time to talk
to real people.

And remember if it happens that you come up with a truly new, truly
innovative, truly epoch-making design, do not hand that design over to
the prof. Give him something else, good enough to get an 'A' for the
course.
Keep your notes & drawings on diskette, not on your computer.

give some other recommendation besides the questions I will be glad to
know it.

Rumpelstiltskin...

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves" -- Wm. Pitt the Younger

California Poppy...

I want a flat wheelbarrow which will contain my entire garden. Then, I
can wheel it into the sun, or out of it, into shelter in a storm.
Actually, about the amount that would go into containers in a
wheelchair is about all of the garden that I want now.

California Poppy...

That should be wheelbarrow, not wheelchair, although I may end up in
one someday.

Islander...

It has already been invented! A neighbor, knees giving out and back
nearly gone, purchased a power wheelbarrow. Runs up and down hills with
all manner of loads. Even has a dump option. No pain, no strain.

I thought that this was the ultimate until a local woman showed up with
a power wheelbarrow that runs on tracks like a tank. This puppy can
traverse any kind of ground with massive loads. Cool!

jimstevens...

Glad to oblige. Come by the retirement group any time. I take these
surveys seriously!

emily2...

Thanks for the best laugh of the day.