For the class Design and Machines, I led a team of six students that designed a stair climbing trolley. The trolley was designed to reduce the effort of carrying luggage over the stairs. It was designed for keeping them at public places where escalators or elevators are not available. The trolley contained two tri-wheels that enabled it to traverse the stairs. Moreover, a pawl and racket based mechanism was adopted such that the trolley can be adjusted for the different size of luggage. We utilized design optimization and material selection techniques to optimize each element of the trolley including a hub, wheel shaft, chassis, bearings, etc. The resulted design reduce work done by a human to carry luggage by 50%.

Apart from managing and distributing the workload among team members, I was responsible for realizing the designs discussed in brainstorming sessions through CAD model. After that, I carried out motion study in Solidworks to validate its working under load and gravity. Finally, we fabricated a prototype for establishing a proof of concept.

Our team was given an opportunity to demonstrate our project during "Open House Day" of our university.