Hunting out a good design solution

Iain Tolladay uses the Tusk to transport a pig.

Thursday, June 19, 2008
Hunting out a good design solution

Emerging from the bush with a heavy trophy on his shoulders used to mean hours of uncomfortable toil for Iain Tolladay.

The 23-year-old industrial design graduate has combined his training with his passion for hunting to invent a backpack capable of carrying wild game weighing up to 100kg. The Tusk, as he calls it, redistributes the load from the back and shoulders to the hips, in the same way a hiking pack does.

The design has put Mr Tolladay into the finals of next week's Dyson Product Design Awards, where the other three finalists are also past or present Massey students.

Mr Tolladay says his inspiration came from personal experience. “I remember the first time I thought of it, I was carrying out a really heavy pig. It took me and my brother four to five hours to get it out of the dense bush. I thought `there has to be an easier way’.”

He graduated with a Bachelor of Design from the Wellington campus alst month and is now working as a builder in Kaitaia, enabling him to spend plenty of time hunting. His last year of study was spent working on the Tusk project.

”It's not only more comfortable, it is also safer than conventional methods. The Tusk has safety clips which allow a hunter to quickly release its load.”

Before he had a real pig to test Tusk on, Mr Tolladay practiced on classmates. “I had a 110kg dude on my back at one stage.”

Mr Tolladay says other hunters have provided good feedback and he hopes to manufacture the Tusk commercially.

The other three award finalists are also Massey students and alumni: Kent Hodgson, who invented a drink cooling system; Alexander Wastney who came up with a sports therapy table for professional sports teams; and Matt McKinley, who designed a mobile sheep testing station for farmers to test pregnant ewes.

The winner will be announced in Auckland on June 26. The design award is open to final-year students studying in the areas of design, technology or engineering and to graduates in their first five years in the workforce.

ENDS

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