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  Austin Liu

  6 years ago

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  This design still puts far too much weight on the human pulling it. This is a reverse wester-style wheelbarrow.

  
  

  The ancient Chinese style wheelbarrow has the wheel under the center of gravity, such that the human using it doesn't bear any of the weight, and only provides traction. As a result of this design, the Chinese wheelbarrow permits individuals to move over a ton.

  
  

  We shouldn't be surprised by the notion of a person rolling around loads that heavy; pallet jacks work the same way, and are regularly used to move loads far too heavy to move with a wheelbarrow. When the user only needs to steer and provide traction rather than bearing the load, the whole arrangement is simply more ergonomic. 

  
  

  I contend that if they redesigned this with this wheel-under-center-of-gravity principle, it would be even better.

  
  

  See this article from Lowtech Magazine on the Chinese Wheelbarrow. In ancient times, they even put sails on these wheelbarrows, so the human only needed to steer, and didn't even need to provide traction.

  https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html

  
  

  The modern incarnation of this invention is the Honey Badger Wheel:

  https://www.notechmagazine.com/2016/03/chinese-wheelbarrow-meet-the-honey-badger-wheel.html

  
  

  If you turn this honey badger wheel thing around and pull it, you have what I'm proposing above. The only thing about this honey badger wheel design is that the load has to be balanced on both sides of the wheel, If a smaller wheel were used, and the load were placed over it, that problem would go away.

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