My Brother’s Bicycle Powered Washing Machine

Last year, my brother, Richard Hewitt, spent some time volunteering in an orphanage in Burundi, Central Africa. He brought back some coffee beans for me and a sack full of inspiration for his Product Design degree at Sheffield Hallam. I woke up this morning and read an excited text to say that his final year project is being reported on all over the world. It really is, I even found a report on a Japanese website. I couldn’t read it, but it looked cool.

My brother’s invented a belt-driven, washing machine tricycle. It’s a simple idea: fit the ‘SpinCycle’ design to the back of a tricycle, load it with dirty clothes, detergent and water, ride around for ten minutes, drain, add rinse water, ride around for another 10 minutes to complete the cycle. If you want to go the extra mile, you can also use it to spin-dry clothes.

This may sound like a long process, so I’ll let Rich take up the story. "One of the tasks I did at the orphanage was to wash around 30 loads of children's clothes by hand. This was extremely time-consuming and I thought 'There must be an easier way than this', and it set off a train of thought that led me to this idea. "They use bikes a lot there so I came up with the idea that it could become a micro-enterprise for people. As well as saving a lot of time, energy and water, people might also be able to make a little bit of money. "In the development stage I looked at making it into a trailer for a bicycle, but it made more sense to create a complete unit. By removing the aesthetic aspects the design could easily be simplified and made cheaper, and in terms of a workable product it's almost there."

Cycling is truly the world’s most beautiful sport, so I love to see ideas that mean a bit of pedaling can create far-reaching benefits for society. If you’re anywhere near Sheffield, today is the last day of his exhibition. You can find out more about the SpinCycle at Sheffield Hallam University's Creative Spark exhibition and if you have any questions for Rich, feel free to contact me via twitter and I’ll put you in touch with him.