Mini FEMA trailers

[TOMAHAWK9521]

Gents,

I’m in need of your input on a design project for my beginner design studio class. Each semester the class is assigned to come up with a solution for a real world client. This is a way for the school to cooperate with various businesses while at the same time giving industrial designer students the opportunity to focus their skills and come up with a winning concept.

This semester, my class was tasked with coming up with a winning concept for a FEMA/Red Cross/disaster/emergency support/relief trailer to be used with…………….electric bicycles.

Now that you are all done laughing and/or choking on your coffee, let me continue. As God as my witness, the client claims that some AD QP’s approached him about procuring some of his bikes and the trailers for work over in theater. I didn’t press the issue since it would have likely made me look like I was mocking him right out of the gate. Now, unless you all want to know the back-story on this project, I’ll spare you the reading and get right to it.

The trailer specs are based on the surly long bill trailer: http://surlybikes.com/bikes/bill_trailer. Attached are scans of what the client is looking for. (Kindly disregard my chicken scratch notes.)

Now although I have never been in any EMS work, I’m the only one in the class with any experience that can come close to it. I convinced my 3-person team that the trailer needed to be extended to 6 feet in order to accommodate larger bodies if necessary. I then let them know that friendly, warm and fuzzy “feel-good” aesthetic design considerations were our lowest priority. I wanted our concept to use this platform in the most efficient manner possible. Aerodynamics are irrelevant. The user will be pulling a trailer weighed down with as much as 300lbs of equipment. Unless they are using something logical like a motorcycle, Zarang 3-wheeler or ATV, they won’t be going fast enough for wind resistance to be an issue.

We also decided to go with a modular packing system that could be tailored to a particular catastrophic scenario, region of the world, etc. While just about everyone else was sweating over how to make it modern, comfortable for patients and pleasant looking, I was putting together a list of off-the-shelf, major end items I would want to handle the basic needs in an emergency situation. This included the weights and dimensions since this stuff had an extremely limited platform on which to go.

Obviously, my list could use some work. I couldn’t look at this as a bug-out rig for individuals, but something that would be a stopgap for possibly large numbers of people for a limited amount of time until more help could arrive on scene. I see this platform as a pilot effort into a forward or restrictive area for larger FEMA-type organizations to fall in on as they become available.

My team’s concept was to keep the trailer modifications to a minimum to accommodate as much supplies as possible. Battery storage is in the frame, under the deck of the trailer with access ports on both sides if needed. The two side panels are 2’ x 6’ back boards made from aircraft aluminum. The end panels are 2’ x 2’ and made from the same material. They can be mounted as deck pieces to lengthen the trailer and act as platforms for charging electronic devices. (See attached sketches and ¼ scale model) Other than that, our idea was to use a color-coded modular packing system for cross-loading the payload’s weight evenly.

Blue=water
Green=Food
Yellow=Power/electrical/lighting
Red=Medical
Purple=Comms
Orange=Heating
Black=Tools
White=Refrigeration/Cooling
Gray=Shelter

One team came up with standard built-in compartments for housing tools, tents, and battery storage, which significantly raised the height of the trailer platform. They also wanted to use hardened containers for each module, such as water, food, meds, etc. Their boxes looked a lot like Pelican cases and I reminded them that although I am also doing the modular package idea, they might want to consider the size of the cases they were looking at. Those cases can eat up valuable space and weight. My plan is to cross load modular components in order to keep weight distribution more even and keep the load’s center of gravity as low as possible. However, the professor liked their idea better than mine. Oh well.

By now the prof knows I have a much different background than the rest but I have yet to convince him that my approach is better. He, like most of my classmates, is looking at this from a designer’s point of view, which is fine. But I’m coming at this from a user/operator. Using the trailer for CASEVAC is not the main priority but just about every team in the class is doing it that way. Some of these things look like mini campers or space pod ambulances.

My hope is that my team will come out ahead of everyone else by sticking to the primary requirements while at the same time keeping the trailer concept as utilitarian as possible. Any ideas you lads in the EMS world can toss my way would be greatly appreciated.

[Pete]

OK, now that I'm done laughing - and I did look at the attachments.

My first question would be "Why?"

Electric bike hauled? Dude, I ride a bike and I can feel my weight whenever I go up a slight incline. No mater how small, compact and light you make it - it still has to be hauled up an incline or three. Electric bikes would eat through any batteries.

I'd ditch the trailer, get a good set of front/rear racks and saddle bags, and use a tent. Water? Water is heavy as shit. Pack enough to live on for a while and you'd never be able to move the trailer. A good filter pump don't weigh much or take up much room.

Seriously, anyplace you could get an electric bike to haul that thing you could get a little Suzuki 4x4 to haul more, faster and further.

Help me with the big picture - I'm not seeing it.

Bug out? You'll have to stick to really good trails, and you'll stick out like a sore thumb just about everywhere.

[Golf1echo]

Interesting project. I have run across an electric bike that was originally designed for Czechoslovakian Combat Engineers, it was very powerful and had a solar charger that could recharge the batteries.
Here are images of a local man that has me very curious because he operates this rig through out the year, apologize the photos are not better. There are several bike rigs like this used by scrapers and homeless, they seem to be efficient.

[TOMAHAWK9521]

I know. The entire concept is completely ridiculous. Not for idea of an electric bike and trailer, but for trying to make it a standard disaster relief platform. I took me a couple weeks to accept that this assignment wasn't a joke. My mother had a 5 minute laughing fit when I told her about this. Others have settled with "WTF?!!"

The client is the creator of Optibike out of Boulder, CO. He is a nice enough guy. He makes electric bicycles that supposedly can climb steep mountain roads with minimal effort. I haven't actually ridden one of his bikes so I can't say whether it's possible or not. It just smells like it's all about the feel-good, green energy ideology.

The bikes look all sleek and what not but when I heard the price range, I about flipped. The lowest price tag is $7K and the upper range is $14K! I said you could buy a decent motorcycle or ATV for less.

Our instructor was telling us about a conversation he had with a fire/rescue crew on this subject. Every contingency he tried to come up with was shot to hell with the simple response, "We'd just use a chopper." As he continued about his conversation with these guys, the other students kept looking over at me. I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled as if to say, "I told you."

[Pete]

Get one and test it.

If he's so all fired sure his bike can pull it then have him give you a couple for testing it.

Knock together some two wheel cart, load it with 300 lbs of weight and tow it behind his bike through the nearest bike path that has some moderate up and down climbs. Have an app track the ups and downs to see how it operates.

If the bike can't pull it no sense making it - unless he's going to give you tons of money.

One thing to remember - bikes use different muscles than walking. If you don't ride a bike every now and again you can get a real good burn going after about 10 miles - electric assist or not.

I looked at the web site. If you take out the electric motor stuff the site looks pretty much like a high end mountain bike company. Throw in the electric motor and you get a lot of "Wow, cool, outstanding" stuff but when you try and find technical stuff you get a 90 mile range - with the upgrade of the touring battery. Nothing about what elevation changes you can expect in that 90 miles - or how hard you'll have to peddle.

[Golf1echo]

While this trailer is for carrying bikes it might offer an alternative to a box type trailer, if scaled down http://store.sylvansport.com/. Seems like a lot of possibilities ie. integrating existing equipment, Multi function ( one trailer I saw had a dump bed ).

[TOMAHAWK9521]

Originally Posted by Pete

Get one and test it.

If he's so all fired sure his bike can pull it then have him give you a couple for testing it.

Knock together some two wheel cart, load it with 300 lbs of weight and tow it behind his bike through the nearest bike path that has some moderate up and down climbs. Have an app track the ups and downs to see how it operates.

If the bike can't pull it no sense making it - unless he's going to give you tons of money.

One thing to remember - bikes use different muscles than walking. If you don't ride a bike every now and again you can get a real good burn going after about 10 miles - electric assist or not.

I looked at the web site. If you take out the electric motor stuff the site looks pretty much like a high end mountain bike company. Throw in the electric motor and you get a lot of "Wow, cool, outstanding" stuff but when you try and find technical stuff you get a 90 mile range - with the upgrade of the touring battery. Nothing about what elevation changes you can expect in that 90 miles - or how hard you'll have to peddle.

You make a valid point. We were supposed to get to test ride the bikes but it was snowing pretty hard that day so it was cancelled. This week we will be making a full-scale model so each team can see how well their ideas will pan out.

As for the overall assignment, I can only drive on and do my best to make filet mignon out of a bucket of sh*t. As for what would need to go into it, I figure that if you were the guy who was going to have to pull this little red wagon into an area that was too restrictive for larger vehicles or rotary winged A/C to get into, you would want to be outfitted with the best stuff FEMA or whomever could afford off the shelf to fit onto there. Understand, my philosophy is that you'd likely go into a situation in pairs so you can haul more stuff and not have to do this duty by yourself.

For med gear, I looked at nitrile gloves, dust/breathing masks, and at TSSI for M5 Bags and Mass Cas bags.

For shelters and such, I looked at roll-a-cots, mosquito nets, tarps, lightweight tents and awnings.

For water, I opted for a small, lightweight electrical water pump, a good length of garden hose and a small inflatable pool like the half blivet things we had over in Iraq for storing water. That way the water could be drawn from the nearest major source (situation depending) and brought to a central collection point. While the water was being treated with MIOX, the particulate would float to the bottom. To further take care of the water, I would use a heavy duty purifier and/or 50 qt. propane heated King Cooker pot to boil it. The folks in need could come get what water they needed. Collapsable water jugs, water bricks and buckets could also be brought in to carry and store water.

For food, I'd bring pre packed square 5 gallon buckets or water bricks or several cases of MRE's.

Although the project called for some form of Wifi hub, I figured the wireless net might either be burned out like during Katrina or else the government would cut down the bandwidth to allow official use only. Therefore I listed hand held radios and portable shotwave/HAM radios as my primary means of commo.

For keeping stuff like antibiotics and other such perishable meds cool, I listed the Intelletual Ventures Cold Chain Device

The other kids on my team are tasked with the shelters, solar panels and power supply needs and configurations.

I know this list is probably off in some areas but again, I'm trying to come up with the most logical solution for the most bizarre concept.