When I stumbled on this Designboom post about a scooter backpack designed by Gustavo Brenck, my first thought was “That looks very familiar”.
In 2007 I directed an animated kids series called All Terrain Brain at Global Mechanic for Three Chicks Media. All Terrain Brain was a series of 1 minute animated musical episodes focused on entrepreneurial thinking. Each episode had a topic or inspirational story about starting a business by following your passion or seeing problems that need solving.
In the 23rd episode there’s a kid who’s sick of lugging a heavy backpack full of books. Through a series of trial and error he developes a ‘ride-a-pack’. It’s a fantastical automated folding backpack with integrated scooter so that you can coast with your pack instead of lugging it.
It turns out that the ATB ride-a-pack and Brencks Scooter Backpack aren’t the only ones out there. There are several products on the market, like this Samsonite Microscooter and one from Glydegear.
Then there’s the Scooter Backpack RE-Kick from a company called Evoluggage. It looks like this was introduced at a Kansas City invention convention in 2009. I found this news clip featuring the invention, and the interesting thing is the interview takes place at the Kauffman Foundation. The Kauffman Foundation is the organization that funded production of All Terrain Brain.
This is not to detract from the great design work that went into any of the real life versions of the Scooter Backpack. I have no idea if any of the inventors ever saw the All Terrain Brain show, and in any case it’s a completely different process to draw something fantastical and make it work in real life.
…But I would be curious to hear if there were any scooter backpacks on the market before 2007.
Here’s the episode with the Scooter Backpack:
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