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UCSD MAE156B Senior Design Project

Sponsored by Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg

The Car Cart

Figure 1: CAD model of Car Cart Figure 2: Photograph of complete Car Cart Prototype

Link to Executive Summary

Background

Transporting groceries can be a hassle. Manual effort (and sometimes multiple trips) must be executed by the shopper in order to transport groceries from the store to the shopper’s personal kitchen. One would have to load said groceries from the store-provided shopping cart to the car trunk, push the shopping cart to its designated area, drive home, and finally, unload the car trunk of its perishable contents. Unloading of one’s car trunk would then consist of walking into one’s kitchen holding as many groceries as one possibly can in an effort to reduce the number of trips one must make between the kitchen and the car, all the whilst praying fervently that the flimsy plastic bags remain intact with their contents until reaching the desired destination.

Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg aspired to rectify this problem of inefficiency. He thought up a concept he termed the “Car Cart”. The Car Cart, would essentially be a modified shopping cart. Consider the scenario given previously. Someone using the Car Cart would be able to execute all the same functions one would be able to do when using a typical shopping cart. The only difference is that, once all the groceries have been loaded into the Car Cart, the shopper would be able to move the Car Cart along with its stored groceries into the trunk of his/her car trunk with a minimal exertion of physical effort. And once the shopper has driven home and needs to transfer groceries from the car trunk to the kitchen, the shopper will simply remove the Car Cart from the trunk and roll the Car Cart into the designated area.

Objectives

To design a Car Cart that will fit into the trunk of a Prius and be easy enough for the consumer to operate. The following requirements and preferences are as follows:

Functional Requirements

• • Be a working prototype

  • Fit the trunk spatial constraints of a 2010 Prius (101cm x 57cm x 51cm)

  • Be simple to use

  • Require minimal amount of physical exertion by the user

  • Be of minimal weight yet be sturdy and stable enough to hold an entire basket’s worth of groceries

Ideal Preferences

• • Easy to manufacture

• Easily adaptable to fit a variety of car models

Deliverables

• • A working prototype car cart

  • A user and operational/safety manual

  • A technical manual with schematics, CAD drawings, and component explanations

  • A CD with digital versions of the documents noted above

Final Design

For more detail on the specifics of the final design, click here.

The final Car Cart design has 7 major components:

A. Sliding Front Legs

B. Sliding Back Legs

C. Pin Locking Mechanism

D. Wheels (Ground)

E. Wheels (Trunk)

F. Cart Basket

Below is an annotated model of the final design of the Car Cart. Note that the letters correspond to the different components.

Figure 3: CAD of Car Cart with Labeled Parts

Video 1: Motion of Legs Folding Up When Pushed into Trunk

Video 2: Motion of Legs Unfolding When Removed From Trunk