# Designing a new golf cart for college project - user research?



## KevRC4130 (Feb 27, 2011)

Hello everyone,
As a Transportation Design (basically: car design) major, I am currently involved in a school project where we must research golf carts and their users, and then design/create a new and improved cart concept based on our findings. 

We've done a bit of field research talking to people on the course, but as expected, people playing golf generally don't want to be interrupted by a few college kids with notebooks and cameras. Plus, there are obvious rules against trespassing, etc. 

So, Plan B is to conduct that research digitally, and here I am. 

Our basic questions: 

Do you own or rent your golf cart? If you rent, are you generally satisfied with the models offered by the course?

Do you prefer electric carts or gas carts, and why? 

What is your take on custom cars (ie Hummers or Rolls-Royces)? Goofy and disrespectful, or cool and fun? Would you drive one? (with this answer, knowing your age would be especially helpful)

Are there any areas needing improvement or general design flaws you've noticed with current carts?

If you had a hand in designing a new cart... What would you most like to see? 




These are just basic questions to get a discussion going. Really, any opinions (good or bad), information, data, ideas, etc would be hugely helpful. No idea is too crazy, and any contribution to the discussion helps! 


Thanks!


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## Big Hobbit (Nov 2, 2010)

Rent one fairly regularly. It does what it says on the can, i.e. it gets me and the clubs around the course.

Prefer electric ones, they're quieter and don't vibrate as much.

Don't have a problem with custom cars, and would quite like a 50's style hotrod. Age 52.

Would like perspex window at the back rather than being open to the elements. Perhaps not a problem not Florida/Spain/Portugal but in northern Europe its not always dry. One sheet of perspex would add very little to the price.

Also, fitting two tour bags on a buggy is a tight fit.


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## Tim (Jan 8, 2011)

The cart is included in the green fees where I play. I prefer electric. I think they do the job just fine and I see no need to improve them if they are only used on the coarse. I dont see any reason for custom styled carts on the coarse, unless someone has money they want to spend. 
Now if I lived somewhere like Sun City or some similar community, well I would think a longer range might be useful. And in that situation it would be cool to have a custom ride also. Id also like to have a back seat in that situation.


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## Surtees (Sep 11, 2007)

I don’t use a cart that often, but with that said heres my input.
I like the design of some of the custom ones. I with Big Hobbit I'd take a 40-50 hot rod style one I'm 25.
Petrol or electric both work for me I'm a mechanic studying to be and mech engineer so I do like playing with a petrol motor.
A cart with a back window would be handy and more adjust with the bag holders so that they can take a cart bag or a tour bag.
If you’re playing with petrol ones to integrate a heater into the system with a fan would be great, of course this means the engine would have to be water cooled not air cooled.
If you’re playing with electric it would be cool if you could integrate some power regen system into the braking system to help with charge and allow longer run time.
Nice suspension would be good too.

I have been thinking of making up my own cart up so I've been doing a bit of thinking about it too.
__________________


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## 373 (Jun 9, 2006)

The cart is included in the green fee and mandatory where I play most frequently. Some other places I play allow walking, but I always ride. Different courses here have different models and brands, but nothing so different I would say I like or dislike one any better than the other. I only know one place around here that uses gas carts and I happen to know the people who live on the perimeter of the golf course hate the noise.

I prefer electric carts. The noise of gas carts doesn't allow as much for conversation and occasionally, someone starting a gas cart becomes disturbing in your backswing.

The custom carts are cute, but a needless expense that doesn't provide any functional advantage. I would drive one if it was provided to me as a rental, but if I had some desire to buy a cart, I wouldn't buy one customized to look like anything else.

There are two things I have noticed about the electric carts I have used recently. At one course, the width of the area where two golf bags strap in was so skinny that our two bags barely fit. We both have ordinary cart bags. There would be no way we could have ridden together in the same cart if one of us had a staff bag.

The other thing, much more important in the design, was the pocket in front of where we sit. In one case, (sorry I don't know the model and brand of the cart), the pocket connected from side to side and you could lose something behind the console where it came down and had the key and forward/reverse switch, hiding the view of the pocket "tunnel" behind it. I was so tired after one round last summer that I didn't realize my phone had slid into that area and went home without it. I had to go back to the course to find it later.

Again speaking about that pocket area, I wish they were covered with some sort of soft material instead of hard fiberglass. Like most people, I put my phone in there while I play. Sliding around and bouncing in that hard pocket area abuses a phone and if it accidentally gets face down, the screen can become severely damaged. I put mine on a hand towel I put there specifically for the purpose, but the cart could eliminate that need by $1 additional in its design.

If I could design a new style cart, there is definitely something I would do, not just the padded pocket. This is not a new idea because I've seen it before, but I think it's a superior design I would return to.

I would have the back of the cart be slightly longer and the clubs would lay down in a couple slots, offering them to you at an angle similar to what you see with a pull cart. I'm tired of having clubs come unstrapped if we hit a bump, falling to the ground, scratching graphite shafts, chipping paint off wood heads if they are uncovered. At a place in Louisville, Kentucky where I grew up, they had a few of the carts with the back ends made to let the clubs sit that way and it was just one of those things that made immediate sense to me. They were also the carts people took first whenever they were available. It obviously made sense to more people than just me.


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## KevRC4130 (Feb 27, 2011)

Guys, Thanks so much for the feedback! Very helpful info so far. If anyone else could contribute that would be great. Even if it's repetition of the same ideas... We're trying to get an idea of which complaints/suggestions are most common.


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## KevRC4130 (Feb 27, 2011)

So, my group has a bit of an odd request: 

Are there any golfers in the SoCal area who would allow our group (there's three of us) to observe a round of golf? We're flexible about the logistics: ideally, it would be a fairly interactive experience where we'd actually ride along, talk to you, buy you a beer, and just have a great afternoon. But we could also be completely invisible, walking alongside you, simply observing and not interrupting your game. We're basically gathering information, watching your subtle (and often subconscious) actions as you interact with the cart during real-world play. 

About us... We're three guys from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, studying Transportation Design. For those that don't know, this is arguably the best program in the world for this field, which is essentially Car Design! Basically: our mutual dream is to be the guys who work for major automotive companies and do their concept sketches for them. All in all, we like to think we're laid-back and interesting people who would hopefully enhance your afternoon of golf, rather than be a nuisance. 


Thanks!


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## 373 (Jun 9, 2006)

Not sure who we have in SoCal... From here in SoFla, it's a tough commute...

Dennis


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## FrogsHair (Mar 4, 2010)

Don't know if this has already been offered up. If so my apologies. How about a solar panel on the roof of the cart? This could help keep the batteries powered up. Even if it did not do the job completely, a solar panel would at least help reduce the "expensive" time a cart is plugged into 110v/220V AC for recharging. Once the initial purchase is made, the energy of the sun is free. I travel a lot, and use solar panels to run almost everything on my RV. I can go 4 days just off my battery bank. Only appliances I can't run off my batteries are my A/C unit, and Microwave.


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## Surtees (Sep 11, 2007)

sorry I'm in Australia here...
Solar panells now thats an awesome idea you can go the green punt to for trying to sell the idea


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## FrogsHair (Mar 4, 2010)

Beer!!! Yeah Buddy! Too bad you are in Southern Nevada. 




KevRC4130 said:


> So, my group has a bit of an odd request:
> 
> Are there any golfers in the SoCal area who would allow our group (there's three of us) to observe a round of golf? We're flexible about the logistics: ideally, it would be a fairly interactive experience where we'd actually ride along, talk to you, buy you a beer, and just have a great afternoon. But we could also be completely invisible, walking alongside you, simply observing and not interrupting your game. We're basically gathering information, watching your subtle (and often subconscious) actions as you interact with the cart during real-world play.
> 
> ...


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