Retrofitted Golf Cart Beach Cleaner

Abstract

It is important to understand and address the need for cleaning our beaches to preserve our natural wildlife and environments. The proposed solution to our nation’s beach problem is a golf cart modified to collect trash scattered on the shoreline. and to gather the majority of pollutants left on our beaches for proper disposal.  The machine’s purpose is to skim the surface of the sand and pick up any impurities. The beach cleaner utilizes an old golf cart as the platform. A ramp is mounted in the front of the golf cart, so the sand can travel upward from the forward movement of the vehicle. Part of the ramp contains screened material in order to drop off some sand and lighten the load on the vehicle. At the top of the ramp, the sand falls onto a conveyor belt powered by a pulley system. The scoops on the conveyor belt help transfer the sand into the filtration system. The filtration system consists of a perforated metal sheet that vibrates from a crank-rocker mechanism. This filter allows the sand to be returned to the beach while the trash falls into a storage bin.