Designing and Inventing Folding Consumer Wheeled Products
By:  Rick Shapiro, Designer-Inventor
 
            I've had friends and acquaintances ask me what my design company, Pancake Wheel LLC does:    some have seen pictures or a news article. I thought I would write an article that explains the long arc of how design innovations eventually become state of the art products.  My field of interest is narrow:  designing compact, fold flat consumer wheeled products (carts, wagons, strollers, joggers).  Several years ago I was approached by the owner of an Austrian golf products company.  The company, Big Max, is very successful in the European golf cart and golf accessory market and they were considering expanding their reach into baby strollers, initially to be offered in Europe. Licensing several of my U.S. and China golf cart and baby stroller/jogger patents could be strategic to a new fold flat stroller design.  While many consumers wouldn’t notice, the wheel design of portable golf carts can be similar to the wheel design of some baby strollers or baby joggers.
 
THE DESIGN PLAN
 
            The owner of the Austrian golf company had an idea for introducing a new, ultra-compact collapsible baby stroller and already had a very rough first idea for the design, and a factory we worked with already had an early prototype.  I was invited to both license my existing patents, and also work as a co-designer to try to refine and improve the factory’s first rough idea.  As part of the planning, I agreed to travel to a factory in China working with the Austrian golf company, and then to engage in remote design work, via email or skype. 
 
HOW INNOVATIONS OCCUR
 
            At the very first design plan meeting, the factory had already worked up a very rough frame idea for folding the wheels in a very simple way.  One of those rough first prototypes of a 3-wheel stroller is shown below, which would have a push pull portion of the lower frame fold all the stroller wheels.
 

So the epiphany required a new design that would merge a simple recessing, push/pull handle to mechanically fold all wheels of a baby stroller.  Below are a few of my early sketches that show a wishbone design on the lower frame, and the concept of adding a single recessing mechanical push/pull handle. ​

​           Many months after the very first push/pull handle design was built, the factory tried a number of mechanical methods to arrive at the simplest manufacturable method, and one that would be easy for consumers.  This literally took somewhere between 1 ½ to 2 more years, because some of the designs functioned well but were too hard to manufacture, or had too many parts that might suffer damage during use.
 
            Then, in most every European nation, before a product can be sold, it must pass a rigorous inspection process, like UL in the USA. A manufacturer must address any problem areas that the design laboratories find that may not meet any criteria set forth for that type product. Evaluating pinch points, impact and vibration testing are some of the testing mandated under the standards applying in Europe.
 
            The long arc of this state of the art fold flat baby stroller process lasted almost 3 years, and involved design engineers at the factory, and another German designer brought in to adopt the simplest reliable mechanical internal parts. Ultimately the new design, co-invented and co‑designed by myself and my design company, Pancake Wheel LLC, along with two other co-inventors, was introduced in Europe under a new baby stroller brand called Nikimotion, see the setup video for details.

A number of sports coaches have emailed or called to ask about the Pancake folding wagon details lik:  how much does it hold? Can I use bungi cords? Exactly how wide and long it it?  I provide the answers and we have a number of happy volunteer sports coaches using what we believe is the best folding wagon for them.  The pictures with this blog were recently sent to us by a sports coach, and look at how much equipment and gear he gets in it?  Pretty cool.  We make sure that the top edges are level all around to accomodate different size stuff that might not best best to orient all inside the wagon.
If you are a sports coach-please check us out!  If you have bought the pancake folding wagon, please send us your favorite "pack mule" type pictures and perhaps we can post them here too.

Just entering some notes about some pictures I received from a consumer who recently purchased the pancake flat wagon. We are always excited to get pictures showing the different uses consumers use our pancake flat folding wagon for. We maintain the privacy of our customers, but as you can see in the pictures this gentleman told me that he uses an elevator at times and was looking for a small easy to use folding wagon.

He thought that a solid metal folding wagon has advantages over the fabric type of folding wagon which is also popular. We produced a YouTube video comparing the pancake flat wagon to a typical fabric style folding wagon and I am sure many consumers understand the strengths and weaknesses. One good thing about our folding wagon is that you can place the items either inside the profile of the wagon or right on top of the metal walls if you have bulky cargo.

The man who purchased our pancake flat wagon shown in these pictures told me that he really likes the fact that the handle will hold in various positions without falling to the ground. He said he didn't even realize that was one of the unique features until he bought the wagon.

Actually, I am the inventor of this new type of wagon handle that has multiple hold positions and mounts right in the end wall of the wagon. I have also licensed this particular multiple hold position wagon handle to major companies like Radio Flyer wagons as well.

I pay careful attention to every consumer's comments being the inventor and designer of this world's thinnest folding wagon design. Currently I am working on a new plastic version of the pancake flat wagon which has similar features to our blue metal version, but there are a lot of different details that must be worked out.