Landboat will help children learn to sail
PERTH-based Team Magnus is a Scottish company working on a prototype ‘Landboat’ which will help young children learn wind skills essential for sailing and windsurfing.
Kristine Moody, founder of Team Magnus, approached family friend, Mike Macmillan, a keen competitive sailor and instructor, for help in developing the Landboat idea from the start.
They were looking for a way to help youngsters learn sailing skills without being weather-dependent, and considering all the safety issues of being at sea.
Mike says: “Traditional land-based go-karts can fly all over a beach at great speed, but they don’t replicate the skills you need to sail a boat.
“We experimented with different shapes for the base of the land boat, adding two side wheels and a tiller control.
“The centrifugal force and movement helps youngsters to understand where the wind is coming from and how to control a boat with wind in the sails, allowing movement of the small skipper Landboat.”
A STAR grant from Sporting Chance Initiative in Stirling, funded a ‘Failure Mode and Effects Analysis’ (FMEA), with the University of Strathclyde which identified a number of improvements which could be made to the Landboat before it’s brought to market.
The FMEA provided Team Magnus with a comprehensive list of technical corrections, specification and improvements to increase the product’s quality and user-experience.
“We are now working on the second prototype of our small skipper land-boat,” says Kristine. “The first prototype was tested on grass, tarmac and gravel, and has already gained us the intellectual property rights to the term, Landboat, from the Patent Office.”
Team Magnus was supported by Sporting Chance Initiative from Stirling which has provided financial help and business advice in the development of Landboat, Team Magnus’s first novel product development.
“The project would not have been possible without Sporting Chance Initiative. It’s encouraging to know there is an organisation in Scotland who can provide support to Scottish Sports Businesses.”
Sporting Chance Initiative is a Stirling-based company which specialise in sports business innovation through helping Scottish SME’s develop new sports products and services.
Team Magnus is a Scottish company selling a range of outdoor gear for children which is all designed to build sports skills.
“There are very few attractively branded channels for kids outdoors gear between the supermarket products, often destined for landfill, and the high margin kit at the outdoors specialists,” continues Kristine.
Her company has brought steerable sledges, stumpy skis, balance bikes, neoprene balls for water use and 5mm wetsuits for kids to the UK market, and with the impetus to get kids outdoors in all weathers and keep them fit and active.
www.sportingchanceinitiative.co.uk
www.team-magnus.co.uk
MEDIA RELEASE issued by The Business. You too can post media releases (aka press releases), on allmediascotland.com. Email here for more information.
Contact: Carol Anderson
Phone: 01317186022
Email: carola@thebusinesspr.co.uk
Website: http://www.thebusinesspr.co.uk
