Crazy Snow Cart

grabcad

Inspiration My main inspiration came from the given deadline and date the winners will be announced: December 22. This date is in the middle of winter and pretty close to Christmass. Dreaming of a white Christmass, I thought about snow. Immediately I started visualizing people having fun while playing in the snow, making big snowmans and beautifull snow angels, but also thrilling sled rides. That was when I came up with the idea to convert the ‘summer’ Crazy Cart into a ‘winter’ Crazy Cart. Why only drift on that parkinglot in summer, while you can have as much fun when the parkinglot is covered with fresh powder during winter! Design I started to replace the rear swivel wheels with ski’s. When overthinking this design I realised that when those rear ski’s moved indepantly from each other, they can both move in a different direction and then dig in the snow, bringing the cart to a sudden stop. As I don’t whant kids to be launched in an orbit, I had to came up with a solution to make these ski’s move together so they stay parallel. I found the solution in a bicycle drivetrain: if you turn around the crank the rear wheel will turn around as well. Connecting the ski’s with a chain and sprockets always makes the ski’s move in the same direction. This chain is protected by a ‘Chainglider’. The drifts are controlled the same way as with the ‘summer’cart. Soft tips placed on the ski's ends will protect the spectators when a drift is getting out off control. The soft tips will prevented shins getting ripped open by sharp ski ends when the cart bumps into this person. For traction on the front wheel I looked to my RC toy car which has paddle tires on the driven wheels. Replacing the front tire with a paddled tire makes the card movable in snow. However as it will plow through the snow it will dig in that front Wheel. Therefore the bigger front ski is added, now it stays ‘floating’ on the snow surface. The original support blocks that will keep the ‘summer’ cart up when cart wants to flip, are placed close to the Wheel. This means that the front wheel with the added ski cannot turn around for the fully 360°. Thats why these supports are now placed more outward. The dishes will carve on the snow and keep the right side up when the cart is starting to flip. Because snow can freeze up on the bottom side of the cart, I added a skidplate. Now snow will not get stuck on all dents and notched. Also the electronic are more protected. To finish the winter theme the flag is replaced by a furry Foxtail (offcourse made of fake, synthetic fur) Renderings All you see in the renderings is made with Keyshot. There is just a small amount of colour retouching done in external software. The snow surface is made with a self made bumpmap. As you can see Keyshot handles this very well. More renders and animantions will follow! You can find my Keyshot animations on Youtube: - http://youtu.be/aYr3cV2_p_0 - http://youtu.be/td-AqbSUOs4