How a WW2 plane inspired the design of the first collapsible baby buggy
“Great ideas can come from anywhere. There are no titles around an idea.”
For an object to move efficiently through the air, it needs to create as little drag as possible.
In case you’re wondering, ‘drag’ is the technical term for wind resistance.
This is why racing car designers spend hours in the wind tunnel looking for improvements to the way the air flows over every surface.
It's also why a plane’s undercarriage is designed to fold up into the fuselage when it takes off. With no wheels in the way, the air is free to pass uninterrupted.
Pretty clever stuff.
However, collapsible undercarriage was not a design feature of the earliest planes - they made do with fixed wheels.
Nevertheless, by WW2, it was commonplace and featured on aircraft like the Supermarine Spitfire designed by the talented engineer R. J. Mitchell.
The Spitfire was an advanced design with a novel elliptical wing shape and a powerful Rolls-Royce engine that reached a top speed of nearly 600 kph.
It also benefited from a sophisticated folding mechanism for its undercarriage designed by Owen Finlay Maclaren.
In 1944, Maclaren retired from aeronautical engineering and founded his own company making aircraft components.
Almost twenty years later, when his daughter was visiting from Moscow with his first grandchild, he noticed how the bulky nature of conventional pushchairs made life difficult for parents.
Drawing on his experience with the Spitfire, he designed a prototype collapsible buggy in aluminium.
With further refinement, the result was his phenomenally successful folding buggy which is still on sale today.
Owen Maclaren is not alone in taking ideas from one domain and transferring them to another.
For example, we owe the design of the screw in lightbulb to one of Thomas Edison’s assistants who witnessed his boss cleaning his hands with turpentine.
When the master inventor twisted off the top of the metal can, it sparked the idea of a screw-in lamp base.
Mother Nature has also been a great source of ideas.
For example, the inspiration for Velcro came from observing the way burrs attached themselves to a dog’s coat.
And the hydrophobic properties of the Lotus leaf led to the design of a water-repelling paint.
Indeed, breakthrough ideas often come from taking something from one domain and transferring it to another.
So the next time you’re stuck coming up with something new, take a look at the innovation happening in industries outside of your own.
You just might find a clue to your next big idea.
If you’re interested in ideas and innovation then you might enjoy our Creative Thinking and Innovation courses which are packed full of practical tools and tips to help you create the next big thing.
