PamStroller - (How to conquer stairs)

It's very hard to imagine having a kid without having a stroller. One of the big complaints I have is having to move the stroller up and down the stairs. There's a big trade-off between having a huge SUV-like stroller with big wheels, and having a lightweight city/umbrella strollers with small wheels. In both cases, it is difficult to move up and down the stairs-- big strollers may have bigger wheels to climb stairs but are much heavier (20-30 lbs), while smaller strollers (8-20 pounds) have small wheels that are difficult to clear the stairs.

Last summer (2013) I started googling for strollers that can climb stairs more easily, but none of them are consumer ready and in production. So instead of waiting for one to come out, I decided to make one. After doing some research, tri-wheel base seems the most ideal configuration because of form factor, simplicity, and weight. Below illustrates how tri-wheel works:

The left most picture shows that intermittent but great amounts of effort is needed to either pull-up or move-down a stroller. The middle pictures shows that a super large wheel could gently spread the amount of effort needed (even though technically, the amount of "work" is the same), at the cost of weight and form factor. The last picture shows that with a tri-wheel, the amount of effort is similar to a huge wheel without as much compromise on weight and flexibility.

Here's a video of the prototype I made in action. I call it PamStroller:

PamStroller was prototyped by modifying the Chicco Lightweight Stroller. I also bought 2 extra wheel base from stroller parts store, and lastly the "Cosmos ® Pair of Replacement Stair Climbing Shopping Cart Wheels." Below are some pictures while making the prototype:

This is v1, mounted directly on the aluminum bar. It didn't work too well. The v2 version as shown on the video mounts to the plastic wheel mount, which allow me to easily exchange wheels (Chicco's original design to snap on/off wheels).

This is the original Cosmos wheels. First you take out the chrome pins.

Then, drill a whole in the center.

Add your own screws (about 4", I got these from Home Depot)

This is the extra wheel I bought, as I was about to destroy the permanent spoke, remove the rubber wheels, and replace it with Cosmos wheels.

It was a pretty fun project and took less than half a day! Is this a stroller you'd like to use? Would you like to see this readily available in stores? Are you interested in backing PamStroller on KickStarter? Please share and comment!