Electric shopping cart and scooter trailer
- Summary -
Topic: eSCART - Designing and accomplishing an electric shopping cart and scooter trailer.
Scientific fields: Engineering, Environmental Science, Physics.
Contestant: Zsófia Dőry
Consultants: Venczel Borbély and Márton Kékesi
- What is an electric scooter in the morning, shopping cart at noon, and bicycle trailer in the evening? - It must be the latest technical miracle from Japan. If it’s not very expensive, I will buy one.
- And what is a scooter and a goods-transport vehicle at the same time and 3 seconds later it pushes your bicycle from behind? - This is the eSCART.
I set myself a target to create a vehicle with the best properties in terms of traffic, transporting and environmental protection. The eSCART is cheap, energy saving, modern and comfortable.
The eSCART has a handlebar with two positions. You can either use it as an electric scooter or after turning the handlebar forwards you have an electric shopping cart. This cart can be connected by a ball-and-socket joint to a bicycle. It pushes the bicycle at 10-15 mph (16-23 km/h).
The eSCART can carry 40 kg of load at the feet of the passenger. In shopping cart or bicycle trailer function it can carry five times its unloaded weight in the spacious 60-litre box. The engine (24 V, 280 W) and the batteries (2 × 12 V, 18 Ah) take up hardly any place at the bottom of the box.
It runs 20 miles (32 km) after a simple charging of 4 cents of electric energy. Its charging time is 5 hours on the voltage level of 29 V at 4 A maximal loading current.
The wheel diametre is 8", which guarantees easy turning. As a shopping cart the eSCART cannot overtake its leader due to its ergonomic handle. When it reaches the line of the hand it automatically slows down and stops.
Under the handlebar there is a glove compartment, which is an ideal place for a sandwich, mobile phone, map, GPS or shopping list. The eSCART can recharge a mobile phone, too.
During the designing I took the fundamental principles of ergonomics and traffic safety into consideration. I intended the eSCART to be able to be transported both by train and escalator. For manufacturing the vehicle I used paint, tin lead, iron, carbon fibre polyesther,… I came to like them a bit. But even more the many pleasant people who helped my dream come true: call the world’s first eSCART into existence.
Zsófia DŐRY
22. 05. 2004.
Hungary
