The third entry for Blackwood’s 2015 Design Award comes from Catherine Bland; her product is an innovative solution to a problem that many encounter.

The Hopper is a hands free carrying aid that offers increased independence to anyone using walking aids, or just someone who just needs a free hand to steady themselves; it allows people to carry a variety of items, from phones and tablets, to food or drinks, without worrying about their mobility.

Bespoken caught up with Catherine to find out more about the Hopper…

What issues did you encounter that led to your designing of the Hopper?

The Hopper is designed for people using crutches, walking frames and things [mobility impairments] like that, to carry things around themselves. I was inspired to invent it because I broke my leg in a skiing accident; I ended up having my leg operated on twice and was on crutches for quite a while.

Although at the hospital I had a lot of instruction on how to use the crutches and how to get up and down stairs, what wasn't explained to me was the fact that I would effectively have no hands when I was using the crutches and wouldn't be able to do anything for myself.

We live in a house that's on three levels; that was really difficult! The kitchen was down in the basement; the living room on the ground floor; and the bedrooms on the top floor, so it was impossible to get food up or a cup of tea and watch the TV.

It was very quickly, very, very frustrating. So I made a prototype Hopper out of an old cushion cover and dressing gown cord and that did for a few days but I still couldn't carry a drink with that. Then I started experimenting with different things and within a week or two I had the Hopper pretty much sorted as it is now. When I went back to work it was brilliant because I could go to all my meetings and have my laptop, my notebook, my phone and a cup of coffee; I was self-sufficient again.

When did you first realise you could have a marketable product on your hands?

As soon as I went back to work, because it was quite a big company, there were always people around who had done something to themselves with a sports injury or whatever, so people starting saying 'That's brilliant, I wish I'd had that when I was on crutches.' When I started on physiotherapy, my physiotherapist loved it and my friend introduced me to an occupational therapist and she was really keen on it; and so we thought, 'we've got something here.' We got some intellectual property and design rights on it and found a manufacturer and launched it in April of last year.

Your entry mentioned the potential of a wheelchair version, how is that progressing?

We've got a manufacturer interested and we're doing a bit of work with them. The way we've done it so far is we've only sold it to wheelchair users where we've been able to see them with the chair to make sure it works; you can extend the strap to its fullest length have it hanging below the armrest on the opposite side from the control, most people have their controller on the right which is slightly unfortunate as it means the cup holder is at the back.

We've had some 'mirror image' ones made [with the cup holder on the near side] so we're having a look at that. We've found you can strap it on pretty well on most models but I'd hate to sell it to someone and then discover it hasn't fitted on their wheelchair. When we've been to Naidex and things like that, we've sold lots to wheelchair users, but I don't market it at the moment because I can't be sure it would work.

It also mentioned a short term use recyclable version, what would/could that be used for?

The one we sell at the moment is robust, strong and you can wash it; it lasts forever, it's great for long term users. For people who are short term users; patients who have broken their legs or had a joint replacement, we would love it if the NHS would give it to people because it really helps people to manage at home.

It'll have to be quite a bit cheaper - the fact it's over engineered for people like that makes it expensive. We need to make it a lot cheaper and therefore disposable; you have to factor in infection control for the NHS. So we're looking at plasticised paper - the sort of thing they make surgical gowns out of - to see if we can get a hopper out of that. So that's what we're working on.

What would winning the design award mean for the Hopper?

For the product it would mean we could put something into the other versions we want to look at; the wheelchair one and the recyclable one. We started on the kitchen table with our own money so we need to be careful about how much we invest in it, on the other hand there's potential really to help people, so any money we got from the competition we would invest in the development of those other models. Obviously it would be great for customer awareness because we don't really advertise; we don't have a budget for that. Having a competition win would be a real boost as well and be something that people want to write about and be great publicity for our product. It would really help in that way.

What would happen if you didn’t win?

It would certainly be far longer down the road because we've got to make sure we're only spending what we're making out of the product so it doesn't ruin us basically. We're just two people, we haven't got lots of money to put into it so we've just been letting it pay its own way really, having initially ourselves invested over £10,000 on intellectual property and manufacturing; getting it all going. We're paying that back and before we put another chunk in, we want to make sure we pay that back. It would certainly bring these things forward a lot if we can get a chunk of change to put into it.

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