Animal Excrement Picker with Spaced Spike Bars
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing animal excrement pickers lack visibility during the picking and discarding process, making it difficult to confirm proper pickup and ejection without turning the device upside-down, and are costly and hard to manufacture and clean.
Innovation Solution
An animal excrement picker design with a handle and elongated shank, support bars carrying spikes in parallel arrays, and spaced push member bars allowing direct visibility and easier cleaning, eliminating the need for a housing to expose the excrement for accurate placement and sanitary cleaning.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a housing surrounds the spikes to enclose the picking mechanism, then the structure is more complete and protective, but the operator cannot see the excrement during picking and discarding
Solution Approach 1:
The patent removes the housing that surrounded the spikes in prior art designs. By extracting this enclosing structure, the spikes and support bars are exposed, allowing the operator to visually see the excrement during both picking and discarding operations, directly resolving the visibility problem while maintaining structural integrity through the bar support framework
2Stability of the object's composition
If plates are used to support the spikes, then the spikes are held in fixed position, but excrement collects between the plates making cleaning difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the solid plate structure into multiple spaced parallel bars. This segmentation maintains the spike positioning function while creating gaps between the bars that allow cleaning fluids to flow through and reach all surfaces, eliminating the cleaning accessibility problem caused by enclosed plate structures
Solution Approach 2:
The spaced bar configuration creates a porous-like structure with open spaces between the bars. This allows cleaning fluids to penetrate through the support structure and contact all surfaces including the spikes and bar undersides, making thorough cleaning possible without disassembly
3Manufacturing precision
If plates with multiple openings are used to support spikes, then the spikes are properly positioned, but the device is more complex and costly to manufacture
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of using a single plate with multiple precision openings, the patent segments the support function across multiple simple bars. Each bar is a simple structural element that is easier to manufacture, and the collective array of bars provides the necessary spike positioning without requiring complex precision machining of openings
Solution Approach 2:
The bars are designed as simple, inexpensive structural elements that can be easily manufactured and replaced if needed. This approach trades the high manufacturing cost and complexity of precision-perforated plates for simpler, more economical bar structures that achieve the same functional result
Data Source
AI summary
An animal excrement picker includes a handle and shank with a picker at the lower end defined by an array of support bars fixed in a plane at right angles to the shank. Each bar carries a plurality of spikes extending downwardly therefrom; in an array of generally parallel spikes in generally parallel rows and columns for engaging into and holding thereon an excrement element. A push member is operable to move longitudinally of the spikes for discarding the element from the spikes and is defined by a plurality of spaced parallel discard bars with each bar extending in a space between two parallel rows of the spikes so as to be movable along the spikes to push the element off the spikes.