[kookiekrak]

These designs seem to be missing a big factor which is the cost and effort necessary to build one of these shoulder poles.

They're targeting the extremely poor demographic and any design that requires complicated construction would be impossible to build.

[txu]

It's also my question. A working design must also be cheap. The "A liter of light" project is a great example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Fpsw_yYPg

The prototypes shown are far from achieving cost effectiveness it seems.

[ars]

Carving some curved wood to enlarge the contact area doesn't seem like it would be that hard or expensive. Or even a bit of leather, cloth or rope.

So they've been using this pole for 1,000 years. Yet I see it for 1 minute and I want to improve it.

Why? What makes me different from them? Why did they not try to improve it themself? What am I missing?

[zhemao]

You are seriously underestimating the differences in labor and material costs.

Steps for making a curved wooden yoke

1. Cut down a tree

2. Saw out a rectangular cross-section

3. Cut out rough outline of the curved pole

4. Whittle it down to the appropriate thickness

5. Sand down to smooth it out and reduce the possibility of splinters

End result: A single curved yoke and a lot of small pieces of wood that you can't do much else with. You could make more yokes with the rest of the tree, but each time you make one you will essentially waste the cutout section.

Steps for making a Bamboo carrying pole

1. Cut down a piece of bamboo

2. Cut a piece of the appropriate length

3. Split it down the middle

End result: Two carrying poles. The rest of the bamboo can then be cut to make even more carrying poles with practically zero waste.

So you see that the manufacturing processes are very different. The bamboo carrying pole can be made using just a machete with minimal skill or effort. For the wooden yoke you will need an ax to cut down the tree and various woodworking tools to shape the yoke. It also takes more time and care to carve the wood appropriately.

Another consideration is that trees take a relatively long time to grow, whereas bamboo is the fastest growing plant on earth.

[analog31]

>>> 3. Split it down the middle

Why split it, rather than just using the entire tubular pole? No doubt I'm overlooking an important feature. This is just for my curiosity.

[zhemao]

It allows you to flatten the bamboo out so that the weight is more distributed. Look at the pictures in the article under "Field Observation". There are simpler varieties that aren't flattened, but if you look at the poor bloke in "Problems in Current Situation", they seem to give you a massive bruise on your back.

[ChuckFrank]

Split also provides some spring to the pole.

[kimbo305]

> So they've been using this pole for 1,000 years.

> What makes me different from them?

You probably don't have the experience of use that comes with 1000 years. Or even one summer.

As I see it, the tool is already adequate. Especially in bamboo form, the pole has some flex and a smooth surface. Adding curved wood or fabric would cause additional rubbing wear. In the case of curved wood (and some of the prototypes), you lose versatility in how you can use it.

When these guys go up and down narrow stairs, they follow each other closely, each leading with one basket higher and in front. The designs that lock into the torso would make navigating steps and quick direction changes harder.

[dengnan]

For cost consideration? Those poles are made of bamboos which is probably the most inexpensive materials in ancient China and it's easy to get. The shape of the poles is exactly the same as the raw materials. So people only need to cut the bamboo and that's it. No need to do any further work. Bamboos grow very fast and straight. This makes it have very low defective rate.

Imagine there was no plastic, no composite wood. You had to find a large piece of wood to do even a small design. Plus, if there was really a needs for alternatives, there was Chinese weelbarrow [0].

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarr...

[_cudgel]

> Why did they not try to improve it themself?

What makes you think they haven't tried to improve it in a thousand years? Or that every other person that makes their own pole doesn't have some little tweak to improve it only for themselves?

> What am I missing?

I don't mean to be rude by saying this, but: humility?

[JulianMorrison]

In the west, there were shoulder yokes made in roughly a long oval form, with a deep notch for the neck, and carved shoulder pads.

Example: http://www.objectlessons.org/work-and-innovation-victorians/...

The difference is the availability of wood. You would need a truly epic bamboo bole to make anything like that, but one ordinary plank would suffice over here.

[jrochkind1]

I think there are two possible answers.

A) There is a hidden advantage of some sort to the current design that the designers in OP are not aware of or not taking account of. It could just be cost as another poster suggested, or something else.

B) No good reason at all, just tradition. I can't find it now, but there was a post on HN asking why we still used the traditional Western wheelbarrow in our countries, when the Chinese wheelbarrow (what a coincidence!) was so obviously superior. The Chinese wheelbarrow has the wheel in the middle, so the wheel bares the load and the human just needs to push/steer.

[jrochkind1]

Heck, maybe nobody in China ever bothered to improve the shoulder pole, because they didn't need to when they had the superior Chinese wheelbarrow!

[peterashford]

Well obviously you're an enlightened westerner and therefore inherently more clever.

Or perhaps there are other reasons why the simple solution is preferred. I honestly don't know. What I wouldn't do is infer that they're all stupid because they've not thought to do what is obvious to you.

[contingencies]

Yes. In fact, there are a number of advantages offered by the current design that have not been discussed. As I live in the area and have lots of experience seeing people use these in Southeast Asia and southern China (where I usually live), here's some off the top of my head:

1. Quick to make from local, natural, sustainable, free materials. You just split half a piece of bamboo (fast growing, flexible, everywhere in southern China/South/Southeast Asia). Can be replaced almost in-situ if broken, stolen, destroyed by local police/mafia, etc.

2. Easy to balance. The most traditional use of these sorts of poles is for bringing large loads of produce through paddy fields. In order to do so, one must frequently balance on thin muddy paths and cross streams. This is in addition to the steep and rocky terrains mentioned.

3. Easy to unload (drop the pole), without losing or upsetting your load. Thus, deniable in places where traditional street vendors are currently being pushed out by local police. (See also #1)

4. Cool and stays out of the way. Does not impede airflow to body or movement of head which may need to wear a large-brim hat. Critically important in hot and/or wet terrain, and steep terrain.

5. Can spin on the shoulder. Forward-backward orientation for thin paths (through people, planted or natural vegetation, traffic, thick foliage, rocks) or left-right orientation for lower shoulder load where feasible.

6. Skilled operators can rapidly and easily switch supporting position from the left to right shoulder very easily even under heavy load. This facilitates rest for part of the shoulder which largely offsets the alleged discomfort under high load and prolonged use.

7. To place or pick up light to medium loads (eg. mobile food preparation equipment that may include hot coals, boiling water, or similar ... relatively commonly seen in parts of Vietnam), it is sometimes useful to bend rather than fix your back in order to ensure a shock-free placement, at which point the proposed body-mounted supports become restraining.

I would also point out backpacks or harnesses of the type proposed do already exist but are usually used in different situations, ie. to carry heavier loads closer to the back up mountainous terrain where balance and wide, vegetation/rock-free paths cannot be guaranteed. Examples at http://www.tinyadventurestours.com/images/Rural/RuralYunnan4... and http://runawayjuno.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Shaping_Mo... and http://factsanddetails.com/media/2/20090524-Yi%20Carrying20L...

[cheepin]

A few more observations based on my experience with heavy squats.

1.) If the weight gets misplaced, a simple straight bar can be rolled back up to a more "comfortable" position. A curved (C shaped) bar under load finds an equillibrium point and you can't really move it out of that point without deloading.

2.) You can take a really wide hand stance for extra balance if needed. Really nice if the weight is uneven.

3.) Damage control. There are much worse things than bruising across the shoulders. The posture of walking with a pole across your back is really not very bad provided you have adequate core strength. A few of their solutions look like they could cause bad back problems over the long term.

[pnathan]

Yes, I think that this design project is interesting, but suffers from "wealthy person syndrome". If a couple bamboo poles can be easily lashed in a different way to deal with the back issues, that will likely suffice and solve the specified problem without creating an over engineered expensive "solution".

[fubarred]

In order to be successful, as mentioned in other comments, such a project would need more end-users as active co-designers / field testers. Otherwise, it's a pure "design for design's" sake that won't get used. And that would be sad if some extra attention were the difference between a large, branded product company that would be able to reduce the damage and discomfort to millions vs. a concept on a shelf.

[pnathan]

I ... don't think that the end users are going to care about buying a branded product. I think the best possible outcome is a simple adjustment that reduces the damage and discomfort. Seriously. Look at the the pictures of the end users. It's a stick of a certain size and diameter. The replacement has to be... a different kind of rope & stick arrangement, equally cheap, equally trivial to put together.