Help for student designer.

Hi there,

I am a Product Design Engineering student at Glasgow University, for my final year project i am looking in the gardening market and the tools used by various demographics. I am looking to gain insights into the sort of problems experienced when using such products as lawn mowers, strimmers, hedge cutters etc.

For example, an elderly user struggling with the weighty products, or a user in a flat struggling to store the equipment used to maintain small gardens.

I would be interested to hear about any problems you may have and general any improvements/ideas you'd like to see in future products.

Thanks for your time any response would be greatly appreciated.

 

Hallo Smorrison,
welcome to Gardeners Corner. Tools that are worse than useless,
DON'T get us started ! We'll bore you to death!!
Jenny namaste

 

I am looking to find out any problems you have, whether it be a huge problem or a small annoying problem. Any feedback will be great.

Thanks for the reply

 

maybe a demographic you haven't considered, Smorrison...

I'm left-handed - why do lawn-mowers always have the pull-cord to the right? My left arm is strong, my right arm is not, at least for the first few cuts of the year!!

 

There's a blunder in the making. Don't design anything for any 'demographics'. A demographic has 2.1 kids, earns £22k per year, drives a mid sized family car with a 1.6 to 2 litre engine, lives off brand name baked beans, will live til their 79.3 years old, goes on one short haul holiday and two regional breaks per year, and does not exist.

Gardeners are usually, by their very nature, who tend to just find a way to do what they want to do. Probably half the time the tools of the trade are not even off the shelf tools, or indeed available to buy. We are a resourceful bunch.

Another reason why you're doomed to fail if you target a specific demographic, is that anything aimed at demographics tends to be based on a lot of assumptions. An old person isn't physically strong. A person in a flat has nowhere to store stuff etc. Gardening being a 'practical hobby' overcomes all these issues. Just as a petrolhead will find a way to spend thousands on their clapped out Corsa, or a keen cyclist will find somewhere to park their bike no matter how small their house or flat, a gardener will just find a way to make their hobby work for them.

Oh, and beware the frail elderly. Empires were built on the shoulders of the elderly, I in my prime am still nowhere near as strong as either of my grandads were right into their 80s.

But leaving aside the demographic point, lets ponder the original question.

At some point, I have to go outside and cut down a wild rose bush that I don't like. Its about 8ft tall. I just know that when I cut it, bits are going to snag me with their lethal hooked thorns, and I guarantee I'll end up with at least a few minor cuts from it. And once it is cut, I then have to grip it in the loppers just tight enough to hold it but not enough to cut it again, as I drag the bits backwards to the bottom of the garden where they will sit for weeks drying out until I get round to the chore of starting the fire bin to get rid. If you can make a product to make any of that job less of a chore, I'll buy it

 

There some old kit that would do Clueless

 

I find that prolonged use of - heavy flame gun, garden vac, small brush cutter place a lot of stress on my right forearm. A simple adaptable shoulder harness would be handy.
Also moving my mower and shredder around our rather bumpy garden paths is awkward due to the hard plastic roller on the mower and plastic wheels on the shredder. A small trolley with rubber wheels would help.

 

See, I told you Smorrison - you're getting them started ........

 

OK, here's a problem that could be addressed. When you cut the lawn your mower will collect the grass cuttings. If you have a large lawn or the grass is long the grass collection box fills up quickly. You are forever emptying it. Why can't someone design a mower that compacts the grass cuttings?

 

Equipment like electric hedge trimmers are too heavy to handle for any length of time for us more mature gardeners. Is there such a thing as a lightweight motor? Motor mowers have also become heavier in the last few years. Are we supposed to have muscles like bodybuilders to handle them?

 

Thanks for the replys, they are very informative.

Sheal - '' Is there such a thing as a lightweight motor?'' i do believe that the technology is there and there are possibilities to reduce the weight of products by altering the materials/components within the product.

 

I'm left handed too so, how about secatuers for L/H folk. Designed to have the lower blade with the flat top on "my" side.

 

I think Felco do one? Or did I just dream it? (as hubby will tell you, I do have very strange dreams - then again, apparently he was battling floodwater in Woolworths all night last night, so was exhausted when he woke up! Must be something in our water!)

 

I'll speak in a whisper so that we don't disturb your OH if he's having a catchup snooze.
I have emailed Felco re: above,
Jenny

 

If you can design a wide drive-on mower that has 3 cutters, and the middle one will rotate in a different direction to the outside cutters, so it will produce 3 equal width stripes, and when it's turned round for a parallel cut adjacent the previous one the narrow, one third total width traditional lawn striping will be maintained.

Can it be done? I know of a member on this forum that might be interested.

What I mean is a wide mower that would do this:



Rather than this: