Bags Designed to Carry Awkward Objects: Sports Ball Bags

Suggestion for an ID school class assignment: Design a convenient way to carry a half-dozen to a dozen spheres. That’s the awkward task that equipment managers for sports teams have to deal with.The problem isn’t new, of course, so solutions exist. The simpler the design, the more awkward the bags are to lug. Probably the basest solution is the mesh drawstring sack. A slight ergonomic improvement is to add a shoulder strap. Adding a second strap, to make it a gigantic backpack, might make it more comfortable. Even still, you can picture how awkward it would be to walk with this, particularly if you were dealing with stairs. The problem with a formless sack is that the balls themselves determine, entropically, the overall shape of the load. A better approach would be for the designer to determine the shape. All it takes is a little structure, as seen here. This would be far less awkward to carry. You could also add compartments to keep the balls from shifting, but I think this doesn’t provide good bang-for-the-buck, from a material usage perspective. Another approach is to make it a tube. However, this is still awkward to carry, particularly for shorter people. I would think you’d want to carry it horizontally, like this. Carrying two of these, one on each side, would balance the load.Perhaps the best idea: Add wheels and a handle. If you’re an ID professor and you actually assign this, be sure to let us know—we’ll happily publish the results.