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Through observation and interviews, I found that the most common problem women had with using a wheelbarrow was dumping the contents. The “clean” motion that is necessary to switch from an underhand to overhand grip is very difficult. I kept this in
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The concept I chose was a round bottom bucket that would rest on the ground. The idea was for the user to push the handles down and forward. When you set it down to dump, the shape of it assists in the grip change.
After testing the concept against the control wheelbarrow I found a problem. Though the hauling worked and the dumping was steady, the dump was not as successful as a standard wheelbarrow. The idea of the load sliding along the curved surface did no
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Once the new concept was decided on I built a full size model. To make the model, I disassembled an existing wheelbarrow and rebuilt it to match the functionality of the sketch concept. A new frame was necessary to mount the bucket backward, allowin
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I created a "good" and "better" version of the wheelbarrow. The good version would use many parts from a current wheelbarrow and would be less expensive to develop and produce. The better version is completely custom, has a wide tire for visual inte
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