University Design Student needs help with caving project please! :)

Hi to everyone,
My name is Becky and I am in my third year at university studying 3D Design for Sustainability and I am starting my major project. My boyfriend is an outdoor instructor (+ Local Cave Leader) and I would love to focus my new designs on something for cavers!

It would be really useful if you could reply with any answers to the following;

- What are the main problems you find with caving gear?
- Is there anything currently out their that you think is badly designed, doesn't work or is a safety hazard, could be better?
- Is there any equipment you feel is needed for cavers?
- What shoes do you wear when caving, what are the benefits/ disadvantages to them?
- How do you think caving could be made more sustainable? or the equipment used (torches/batteries etc)
- Any other (relevant) comments you think could help!

I would be very grateful for any responses and will update this post with any designs I come up with!

Becky - rcjh2002@hotmail.com

the vast majority of cavers wear wellingotn boots whcih are cheap, robust waterproof and relativly easy to climb around in. One of the most common wellingtons in use was the dunlop sure tread boot which had a rubber sole but this has been discontinued and finding a make of wellington boot with a "grippy" sole is now realy dificult most now being plastic soled and dont provide much grip on wet or smooth rock.

cavers are always after new ways of enlarging constricted cave passages so anything that could be used in a confined space to brake limestone rocks up would be imensly usefull!
sustainability wise the biggest issue is getting to the caves which uses a fair bit of fuel. There might also be some scope in developing new equipment for cleaning muddied stal?

Personally I think it must be possible to design a better caving suit, lightweight and breathable in low wear areas and durable else where, with built in knee pads (replaceable) and decent wrist seals, etc.

But from the title of your course "3D Design for Sustainability" I suspect you need to be looking at either formation protection or a replacement for fixed iron ladders (may be some kind of "Indian rope trick"!).

Formation protection would be interessting as the current taping arrangements sometimes just end up as litter and do not provide a physical barrier so it is possible to inadvertently cross the tape. A protection arrangement would need to be transportable through constricted passages, unobtrusive or partly removable for photgraphy and not damage the cave. Oh and also CHEAP - cavers tend to be a bit careful with the pennies (out side of the pub).

Happy to be educated otherwise but I presume that 3D Design for Sustainability is kinda like inventing new batteries which don't impact on the environment as much as older technology ones, or use of recyclable materials where previous objects were discarded into landfill, or designing objects which require less energy to create etc..

My cynical side tends to react whenever I read the word "sustainability", though, but that's been covered in plenty of other threads already!

But in answer to Becky's (welcome to the forum, btw!) first question, I think you'll find the main problems which nearly the entire caving world has with any piece of equipment are:

1) The price
2) The price
3) The price

... which is a bit ironic, really, `cos the main way of manufacturing anything within the budget of most people, such that the item is actually affordable and hence likely to sell in any quantity, is to get it manufactured in China and imported which is hardly "sustainable"-friendly, insofar as it's not exactly eco-PC from a carbon footprint viewpoint.

How about the life span of items - how much better it would be if ropes, helmets and other lifetime-limited items were deemed safe to use for double the current limit.

Indeed: however, surely since price is probably the main purchasing consideration, longevity associated with use of quality components/materials is likely not to feature highly - think of some of the debates against "pricey, over-machined lights", for example. Stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap.

khakipuce said:

Personally I think it must be possible to design a better caving suit, lightweight and breathable in low wear areas and durable else where, with built in knee pads (replaceable) and decent wrist seals, etc.

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Built-in harness (woven into SRT-specific oversuit)?
Use of kevlar or carbon-fibre as an anti-rip/abrasion resistant covering?
Dry-boots (i.e. like a diving dry suit but for your feet)?
Built-in warming systems?
Peripheral/side lighting OLED for helmets?
Tactile but warm and abrasion resistant rigging gloves?
Multi-way hands free waterproof helmet-mounted communication device?
la la la

Built in harness, thats got to be doable.

A reliable underwater comms system for sump photographers to speak to their subjects - this would reduce the number of dives needed to get the required images, which would massively reduce the amount of fuel burned. Oh - it wants to be cheap an' all.

As a regular wearer of a dry suit, I don't think I'd want built in boots in a caving suit, mainly because if a zip or wrist/neck seal goes and  the suit fills up you are knackered. Also the boots may wear faster than the rest of the suit and are not trivial to replace. However I have often wondered if ankle seals, like kayaking dry pants, would be an option, if water got in at least you could get it out.

What about a suit that lets you put you harness on under the suit, and keep the gear tucked away when not in use. Then it would be away from snagging and abrasion and also a more comfortable harness (climbing stylee)  may be an option.

The other option could be a 3 layer solution, fleece, decent quality breathable water proof in the middle with a (cheap but) durable outer designed to take the wear and be replaced more often.

How about an improvement on kneepads so they don't slip down just before that crucial moment.

Sown in makes sense.

  First I would like to say thank you for all of your replies so far! It really is kind and helpful (and crucial to my project) to gain information from cave enthusiasts such as yourselves, and there have been some very helpful comments which I have taken note of and will be doing further research into, I shall of course keep posting updates of the project and chosen themes. Thank you again,

secondly, lets clear up the "for sustainability" aspect of my course as it does cause confusion and unfortunately can lead to some people to get angry (including myself) as there are so many designs and manufacturers, companies etc who have used the term 'sustainable' so loosely that they consider things like simply changing plastic components into wood makes them more "sustainable".

My course however is 3D design (anything 'three dimensional' - furniture, jewellery, specialised equipment etc etc) that focuses on being as sustainable as possible, and by sustainable I mean, for example- looking at where the materials are made (if necessary then decentralising the production - keeping it locally made and sold), looking at the theory of 'cradle to cradle' - where the components of the object comes from, how they are made and then how they can be used, re-used, recycled etc at the end of their product life, a never ending cycle that results in no unnecessary wastage. There are a lot of other issues involved with 'sustainability' but I'm not going to get into this now as it would take far too long and isn't what this post is about, but I hope this clears up the fact that I'm not jumping on any sustainable band wagons and simply using it for commercial reasons!

please keep posting your comments and I shall update shortly, unfortunately I have to prepare for a presentation tomorrow so don't have time to reply to individual posts right away!

Becky

Ah, I see where you are coming from. Helmets used to be made from cardboard. That would be recyclable.

Peter Burgess said:

Ah, I see where you are coming from. Helmets used to be made from cardboard. That would be recyclable.

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Yes, but with a whacking great carbon footprint, because when they absorbed water and got soggy some users put them in tumble driers to dry.

Graigwen said:

Peter Burgess said:

Ah, I see where you are coming from. Helmets used to be made from cardboard. That would be recyclable.

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Yes, but with a whacking great carbon footprint, because when they absorbed water and got soggy some users put them in tumble driers to dry.

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Did many cavers own tumble driers in them days?

More seriously, I think this thread is a great idea. Caving gear is not particularly sustainable for many reasons, except for the bloke I knew in SWCC who used to recycle old boots out of the bin & back onto his feet.

I thought we all did that? 

graham said:

I think this thread is a great idea. Caving gear is not particularly sustainable for many reasons

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I've seen the future.

Home-made kit, made for owt, from recycled materials which subsequent to use are themselves recyclable while remaining eminently fit for purpose.

"Local caving kit, homemade by cavers, for themselves".

Durability has to be the key point for increasing the sustainability of caving gear. Anything that can double the lifettime of kit would be a significant improvement. Whether it's battery life (although this is getting much better) through to wellie soles or helmet lifetime. Nothing lasts long underground.

After cap'n chris's comment above I hesitate to post this, but I was struck by the idea of wellies made out of reformed car tyres. Grippy, presumably cheap because car tyres are a big disposal issue ...

caving_fox said:

Durability has to be the key point for increasing the sustainability of caving gear.

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Surely the key point is, and will continue to be, price.

Although I'm sure other people have looked into it, the price per sq. metre of kevlar (or, better still, carbon fibre) is around ?30-?40 depending on weave and hence the cost of a caving oversuit fabricated from it will be far greater than everyone hitherto purchasing cordura-made oversuits would be prepared to fork out. The durability would probably be excellent but if no-one's prepared to afford it then where does that leave you?

Also, I think some kind of distinction/definition needs to be agreed upon between sustainability and durability, although it is easy to see that there is a link.

____

By all means try and make your own wellington boots from car tyres but I suspect you'll give up, having wasted more time and money than you'd previously expected, getting nowhere and without a fit-for-purpose end product. Why reinvent objects that have been fine-tuned over decades and which can be manufactured, distributed and retailed (with a healthy profit margin) for less than the cost of your home-spun version?