Celebrating National Inventors’ Day
As Dave Grohl's 2023 “Thank You Canada” Super Bowl commercial finds some new airtime, I am willing to bet I am not the only Canadian who felt a rush of pride. Canada has many inventions to be proud of—Dave mentions peanut butter, the paint roller and the battery. Adding to that list is the Wonderbra, the hard shell in the jock strap… and while we’re talking about it, let’s add VOOMcart to the list!
Last year, after waiting over three years, we finally received approval for our design patent. The process was long and resource heavy, but represents so much more than just a piece of paper.
VOOMcart's patent is a symbol of our team's perseverance and purpose. In a world full of objects, it proves that this idea—a cart designed to make life lighter, easier, and more enjoyable—was worth pursuing.
Why VOOMcart?
My co-founder, Tori and I noticed a real gap in our daily lives once our strollers were folded away. Walking with groceries, or gear became awkward and heavy, and eventually (sadly) we stopped walking to run errands. We wanted something that could do the same thing - allow us to power-walk, load easily and multi-task.
Enter Jimmy Rogers: friend, Mechanical Engineering grad from McGill, Industrial Design grad from OCAD, and kindred spirit (he was actually using an empty stroller to navigate grocery trips). Together, we set out to invent something that didn’t yet exist — the Ultimate Personal Shopping Cart, or as Jimmy said, “like the stroller but without the kids.” Turning that vision into reality meant asking the right questions and designing with real human needs in mind.
How VOOMcart Was Built
The Ideation Journey
For a few years, our team would meet each week, ask questions, analyze scenarios, discuss and debate.
What do we want to carry? A lasagna and wine to a dinner party, load it up for a picnic, stuff from storage lockers, grocery shopping. Shopping with multiple stops sometimes grabbing a coffee stop along the way.
How much do we want it to carry ? How heavy is a week's worth of groceries? How heavy are watermelons, milk, wine… we measured it all.
How do we want it to function? We decided on a max of 70lbs, but HOW to carry and load it was the key design challenge. Nothing in the market was easy to load, or engineered to really move. And nothing combined these elements with a little bit of style!
How do we store it? It had to be compact. We measured small car trunks, and apartment closets. This is when the folded frame became non-negotiable, and combined with our non-negotiable two-removable-bin system - we had a big design challenge on our hands!
What about moving naturally? We love getting steps in, but errands often felt like a choice between the gym or the grocery store. If the cart was right, we could nail both—and get fresh air too! We measured gaits, handlebar heights, everything to make it feel just right.
Human-Scale Design
Human-scale design is about people—how we move, how we live. It was clear the market hadn’t addressed this.
Carts with one big bag are hard to load, clumsy to lift, and pulling a cart behind you can be awkward, and repetitive unnatural movement can lead to injury. VOOMcart had to move naturally, load easily, and allow bins to be lifted safely onto counters or into cars. Grocery shopping should feel easy—even fun.
Prototyping, Testing, and More Prototyping
The patent portion of the journey was just the cherry on top. Before that came testing many prototypes. The first, called 'Proof of Concept', Jimmy built in a (very cold) garage using an old stroller. We loved it! But it was just the start. We made smaller versions, using aluminum tubing and 3D-printed parts.
Each tweak we asked for created a ripple effect — mechanics shifted and moving parts had to be reworked. We quickly learned to balance our ideals with practicality, focusing on the non-negotiables while keeping stretch goals in the conversation. In the end, we landed on a design that folds, holds two bins, and converts to dolly mode for pulling behind you. Not bad!!
Manufactured for Life
Last, and not least, durability. We didn’t want VOOMcart to end up on the curb like so many carts we see on garbage day. Our manufacturer brought us over the finish line with this non-negotiable element. VOOMcart is built to last, and to be your companion for many, many miles.
Building VOOMcart was intense — financially, creatively, and mechanically — but worth every challenge!
So—Happy Inventors’ Day to all the existing inventors, and to everyone who just loves making stuff! Keep dreaming, keep building, and keep making life lighter, easier, and more enjoyable.
