UKH

Hi there!

My name is Finn and I’m currently studying product design at university in Sheffield. I’m doing a project at the moment focusing on outdoor gear (climbing, camping, hiking etc).

My aim is to create a new piece of outdoor gear or to develop/improve upon an existing product.

For my research I’m collecting peoples opinions on:

Any problems they have encountered with gear they use

Any suggestions for improvements that could be made to existing gear      

Any ideas for gear that doesn’t yet exist

If you have any ideas/suggestions then please send me a message, leave a comment, or click the link to fill in the google form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSczcm0l2BG7Mzg186rVi5T-NOEZF2FwFxq...

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Finn

The market needs a hanging stove kit with an inverted cannister for improved cold weather performance.

Stove kits like the Jetboil and the MSR Reactor are great, but the cold weather performance could be vastly improved if they were designed with an inverted cannister design.  

The current stoves that use an inverted cannister design tend to be bulky and not well suited for use in a hanging configuration.  

A Reactor-like stove with improved cold weather performance from an inverted cannister design would rule the world of alpine snow melting and cooking.  

An abseil belaying/device where you can vary the friction without the need to add karabiner?

Velcro - Trashes the surface of technical outdoor fabrics, looses it's sick over time, doesn't stick when clogged up with snow, mud or fluff and is god awful anywhere near long plaited hair. (Press studs are far superior in the majority of settings)

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A device that can locate and smite the owner of the dog just from analysing the poo in bag hung in a tree.

outdoor/non military/80s colourful version of "belt order" for outdoors in hot weather.  (I hate bumbags)

Rucsacs with removable shoulder straps and detachable padded canvas section next to the back so can be washed when stinkyback or stinky sweatstrap happens

(going from canvas sacs to nylon in the 80s I hadn't realised the human body could produce so much sweat! - after all, who likes nylon sheets in bed?)

A harness with 7 gear loops (like dmm renegade) without a waistband that flips over and digs a hole in your hip (like dmm renegade) and with a bottom tie-in loop vestigial strap thing that's long enough not to undo itself all the f***ng time (like dmm renegade).

Inflatable bouldering mats - think of the ease of carrying multiple massive pads...

A laser foot scanner to determine which shoe to buy - this could be coin or card operated say £2:50 for a precise 3-d image of your foot and an e-mailed / printed list of shoes to try, rank in increasing order of pain

E2A could also be linked to a 3d printer to make perfect rock boots while you wait 

A quick release leg system for harnesses that can be used for comfort breaks, without having to take the whole harness is off!

A clip stick with the poles of the betastick evo with the head of a pongoose, but far more durable than both.  

Don't most of them have that?? I'm sure I had one that had side release clips on the status at the back so you can drop the leg loops. Sure the big wall crowd will know best.

https://www.msrgear.com/ie/stoves/stove-accessories/lowdown-remote-stove-ad...

Perhaps you combine this with a Reactor or Jetboil to do what you want. Maybe a bit of modification to remove the legs and it would be near perfect? 

Ps I assume you use winter gas already?

Lots of harness the elastic that holds the leg loops up is removable at the back so you can get your trousers down without removal of your harness, admittedly not super easy to do.

Most have a quick release, but as per my original post many are so awkward that its about impossible to actually use them.

My Black Diamond alpine harness is utterly terrible. A small fiddly hook that goes through the tiniest of loops on the waistband of your harness (under the rucksack) - even with the assistance of my buddy I have never managed to get it reattached without taking the harness off.

A foot scanning service and 3D printed model of your feet to pre-stretch shoes to your feet without the pain. 

A self coiling rope or perhaps more realistically, non-clanking hexes?

Fix the omega link cam. Apparently the come apart when the trigger wires break and they break because the cam is too flexible and the wires rub in horizontal cracks. I read also that the critical pin that holds the cam lobes is held in just by a spring that ages. Thanks in advance and I hope it makes you rich.

Dehydrated water to save weight on camping trips. 

Great photos on your profile 

They fray at the swages, like all cams. Maybe more so. But the fix is the same; every cam I buy gets a big glob of epoxy where the wires go into the crimps to prevent it before it starts. Works great.

The old wild country synchro

It's called a rack

Yeah not the new one tho :-/

A bonnet mounted bazooka for taking out caravans and motorhomes on the A9. I'm finding just shooting out the tyres inefficient.

I've always thought a mortar would work best. When you're stuck in a queue behind one, the high arcing trajectory would allow you to fire over the top of all the other cars and hit the caravan at the front 

Not sufficient.  The stove needs to have a pre-heat element that pushes the liquid gas through a pre-heated tube to gassify it before the gas reaches the burner. 

If you look at stoves designed for use with inverted cannisters, they all have a metal feed tube that runs through the flame to provide this pre-heating action. 

Simply inverting a cannister on a stove without this pre-heating element will just cause flare-ups and poor performance.   

Yes, winter gas mixtures (butane/propane) can help a bit.  However, it doesn't solve the problem for seriously cold weather.  

That's a coincidence - just posted about these elsewhere 

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/gear/praise_for_needle_sports_cam_repair_...

My plea for Link-Cam evolution would be a bit different - make a big blue one! 

Yes, good point, but the ideal weapon would vapourise the offending vehicle so as not to cover the road in debris, yet not leave a crater in the carriageway.

gamma ray laser ?

Does such a thing exist?

I do think it would still be worth going relatively low tech and just having some sort of anti-tank weapon pointing backwards for when you've finally overtaken; the huge fireball in the rear view mirror would be most satisfying.

I would be worried about them removing themselves when I'm in the middle of some heinous chimney

These exist for ski boots, and based on my n=1 experience they work pretty well

There is plenty of military equipment designed that way that is robust enough for heavy loads but I'm thinking of something looking a bit more 80s and colourful - it can be done without flimsy plastic clips but it might be a more involved problem to come up with something that was also good as a climbing sac.

Exactly. It would have to be very robust while weighing next to nothing and not moving the load further from the back. Good luck.

Loads of people asked why there isn't a bigger one back in the day. The answer, obvious when you think about it, is that you'd need ET fingers to work it because the trigger pull would be very very very long.

Like the pack frame in Oetzidorf - I think Karrimor was in existence back in the bronze age

Directional lines on waterproofs to guide the run off especially on trousers away from the crotch and kness, both areas which wet out first 

I think Andy Kirkpatrick already invented it, Vaseline.