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THE TRACK-RACK

The Track-Rack was the main product I designed for my final year product development class. As a passionate racing enthusiast, one of the issues I wanted to address was the lack of transportation options when moving up to privately owned professional racing karts.

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Due to its lightweight and simple design, the Track-Rack requires a low towing demand and is much easier to store separately compared to current market solutions like trailer flat-beds. The overall hitch can rotate to an upright position, making the overall length of a users’ vehicle much shorter than that of a general trailer. With the rotating joint, the Track-Rack can also lower to the ground for kart unloading, removing the need for users to lift the kart and/or require unloading assistance.

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One of the main challenges of this project was to create an entire product from scratch. From multiple product ideas and concept sketches, to interviews with potential customers, this project taught me the importance of communication with key stakeholders during the design process, as well as understanding the market demand for any design one creates. If both are not carefully considered, a mechanical design will not succeed in terms of functionality or sales.

As well, throughout this project I became familiar with the SolidWorks weldments features. For the main tubular construction of the design, I created a custom weldment profile from which the rest of the design was constructed.

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Specifications:

  • Dimensions

    • Overall length: ~2.14 m

    • Overall width: ~1.43 m

    • Frame height: ~0.14 m

    • Vertical position height: ~1.66 m

  • Material:

    • Square tubular aluminum 6061 T6

  • Features

    • Spring-loaded ratchet and pawl mechanism

    • Locking handle

    • Sliding wheel ramps

    • 8-locking straps

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This project was quite engaging and an interesting design challenge, from the perspective of trying to make a purposeful and functional product. There are various areas of potential improvement, such as light weighting components through FEA stress analysis. As this was a short-term project, if given more time, a prototype build and physical testing could be carried out to assess the true functionality of the design.

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*Racing kart model imported from GrabCAD*

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