Project 5
Nature and Form
Problem:
To design a robust travel bag.
Inspiration:
Pangolin / Armadillon
The pangolin/ armadillon rolls itself into a ball posture while defending itself from predators. The hard scales on the outer body of pangolin /armadillon are quite hard and robust and protect the inner sensitive parts.
We will try to imitate the behaviour, where the packaging space will be analogous to inner body of pangolin, which will be protected by flexible scaled outer layer of the travel bag.
Ideation:
Two designs are explored in ideation phase.
- The first design is a cuboidal scaled design which transforms into mobile cylindrical shape (like tyre).
- The second design is a lotus shaped bag, which transforms into a spherical ball.
Due to better space utilisation and easy design, design 1 was considered for conceptualisation.
Final Conceptualisation
The following design was conceptualised with parts as follows:
- Hard scaled Flexible shell: This is the outer layer of the bag, which will be in contact with the floor, when rolling motion of the bag is performed. It will be flexible and mouldable to form outer cylinder
- Soft Internal Layer: This layer would contain different packaging pockets for carrying goods and accessories inside the bag. It will also provide cushioning effect against any impact during rolling motion of outer layer, and will be static unlike outer scaled layer but will be mouldable to form cylindrical shape.
- Roller Bearings: The roller bearings will be attached to the inner soft layer and will be in contact with insides of outer layer to provide frictionless contact between the layers, thus helping in free movement of outer layer while fixing the inner layer of bag, thus stabilising the packaged material.
- Handle: This handle will be used by user to control the movement of bag (just like stadium rollers). It will be attached to inside layer of the bag.
- Shutter: The shutter will be attached to the sides of cylinder to enclose the packaging material from both ends.