When Beda Angelo Pormentilla came up with the idea for a new style bike rack, he tried all the latest avenues to get the product from concept to fruition. After a failed Kickstarter, and attempting to partner up with a friend, Beda tried a new route – partnering with invention company Quirky. Instead of their prevalent iPhone and kitchen accessories along with other gadgets, Quirky took on the design of the Wingz bike rack and turned it into the Wingspan rack shown above. Thanks to the expanding arms, the rack can hold large, bulky items and still fold down when not in use.
For Beda, the aha moment was when he was trying to bring groceries home in a milk crate on his bike. The crate wouldn’t fit on his bike rack, forcing him to carry the groceries home and leave the bike. The original design in the video below was quite a bit different but the general idea was the same – an expanding rack to accommodate large objects.
The Quirky method is pretty interesting with submitted ideas then being evaluated by the Quirky staff and community members to pick which products become a Quirky Invention. After it is chosen surveys are done to judge the consumer’s response to the product, after which colors, materials, and finishes are chosen along with the name and other details. Eventually all of the carefully selected product attributes add up to final product that is then sold through their retail partners which include some big names like Target, Best Buy, and Amazon.
