Our group focused on the use of handcart. Although it is common in our daily life, we believed that there is still space for improvement, and we could add extra functions for handcart by our design. By sending questionnaires and doing several researches, our group found out that many people have been caught in the situation that they could not find a seat outside when they are tired. In spite of some of the handcart with a seat sold in the market, we supposed these products are either hard to operate or too expensive. Furthermore, we also assumed that people need a table when they are siting on the chair of the handcart. Therefore, we designed our project, named Travel Mate, which had a foldable chair and foldable table. We used connecting rods to fold the table and the chair. Besides, in order to save the cost and decrease the weight, we use aluminum pipes as the main part of the structure. We also added a lock to keep the table folded. In this way, people can carry things with this Travel Mate and they can sit on it whenever they are tired, and they can place their drinks and even write on the table.
Our main goal is to design a handcart which could hold as many things as possible. The design should have a foldable chair which is easy to operate and stable as well so that people could sit on the foldable chair whenever they are tired. The chair should be sturdy and occupy as little space as possible. Additionally, this design also needs to have a foldable table where people could place their drinks, mobile phone, books and so on. The table should be able to sturdy enough so that people could even write something on it. Besides, the table should have a large surface and keep stable when it is unfolded. The whole structure should be sturdy enough so that people could carry heavy things. This design should also have good terrain adaptability. In addition, the design should occupy small space when it is unused and its weight should be light, so that it is easy to pull. Moreover, the whole structure should have good stability and when people are pulling it, it should produce as little noise as possible.
In all, with this design, people could carry heavy things and sit whenever they are tired without worrying about seats, and even place their phone or even laptop on the table.
With great efforts, we finally designed our project and made a 3D model of our project. Our project realized most of our project aims. Firstly, our project has a foldable chair which is connected by rods. It is easy too operate and can be very stable. Besides, our project has a foldable table so that people can place things on it. There are also special holes for people to place their drinks on it and can be used as the handle to pull the handcart at the same time. There is also a lock to keep the table fixed when it is folded. Besides we use aluminum pipes to assemble the whole structure to reduce the cost and weight while maintaining good strength. In this way people can pull the handcart easily and carry more things on the shelf, which is also connected by rods. When it is unused, the chair, the shelf and the table can be folded to save the space.
In all, our project has more function than those common handcarts in the market. We also expand the application of the handcart. People can not only use it to go shopping, but also when they want to go somewhere with a portable seat and bag.
