Folding Booth Bench With Seat-Actuated Mobile-to-Stationary Base Shift
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional booth-style seating is less common in institutional settings like school cafeterias due to its bulkiness, immobility, and difficulty in cleaning, which contrasts with the need for mobility, space-efficient storage, and ease of cleaning.
Innovation Solution
A mobile folding bench that converts between a folded storage position and a seated position by pivoting a seat, featuring a mobile base with casters for movement and a stationary base that engages the floor for support, allowing for easy reconfiguration and maintenance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If traditional booth-style seating is used, then comfort and privacy are improved, but mobility and ease of storage are worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The booth is divided into two separate benches that can be independently moved and stored. Each bench can be positioned at opposite sides of a table to create booth-style seating, or separated for storage when not in use, resolving the contradiction between providing booth comfort and maintaining mobility.
Solution Approach 2:
The benches incorporate mobile bases with casters that allow dynamic movement between operational and storage positions. The ability to easily move the benches enables the system to transition from a static booth configuration to a mobile storage state, maintaining both comfort and mobility.
2Ease of operation
If traditional booth-style seating is used, then comfort and intimacy are improved, but ease of cleaning is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
By separating the booth into two independent benches rather than a fixed enclosed structure, the design enables easier access for cleaning underneath and around the seating units, while still providing comfort and intimacy when assembled in booth configuration.
Solution Approach 2:
The mobile nature of the benches allows them to be moved away from walls and fixed positions, creating access spaces for cleaning personnel and equipment, thereby maintaining ease of cleaning while providing booth-style comfort when in use.
3Area of stationary object
If booth seating is positioned next to a wall, then space efficiency is improved, but cleaning accessibility is worsened
Solution Approach 1:
The mobile benches can be dynamically positioned away from walls when cleaning is required, eliminating the cleaning accessibility problems associated with fixed wall-mounted booths, while still achieving space-efficient arrangements when positioned for use.
Data Source
AI summary
Mobile folding restaurant booth style benches are provided, which may be arranged in opposed pairs to form restaurant style booths. An individual bench incorporates a mechanism for shifting the weight of the bench between a mobile base, which may be supported by swivel casters, and a stationary base, which may be supported by non-slip feet, actuated by pivoting a bench seat down from a folded storage position to an unfolded seating position. The weight shifting mechanism may include an engagement member, which is initially spaced apart from an actuator at a folded angle of the seat, and which contacts and begins transmitting force and movement to the actuator at a partially unfolded angle of the seat. Preferably, the bench further includes a biasing component that biases the stationary base upward relative to the mobile base.