The battery is integrated into the frame, but is removable for indoor charging. If you’re interested, you can donate money to Starlight specifically to fund these wagons. Starlight CEO Adam Garone told ABC15 his family knows the impact of the wagons firsthand. The wagon comes with an IV pole attachment, is made from medical-grade fabric that can easily be cleaned, and has a seatbelt with high, detachable walls, making for a comfortable and safe ride. The idea behind them is to make a child’s hospital experience a little less scary and a little more fun.
By providing a different option for patient transportation, these wagons transform a hospitalized child’s experience by removing the fear and anxiety that may come with having to use a wheelchair. The Hero Wagon redesign came about largely because the two organizations began to hear how radio flyer wagon hospital staff were customizing the wagons themselves to fit their needs, says Pasin. So Radio Flyer assembled a team of designers, researchers, and engineers to visit children’s hospitals and conduct interviews with nurses and families to learn firsthand about the user experience.
Radio Flyer has more than 100 award-winning products available around the globe. Since 1917, the family-owned company has created icons of childhood, building a legacy of high quality, timeless and innovative toys that spark the imagination and inspire outdoor, active play. With over a billion wheels on the radio flyer wagon road, Radio Flyer wheels have carried, hauled and fueled more kids’ play and adventures than any other ride-on toy. Radio Flyer has received numerous awards, including “Best Places to Work” by Fortune, “Top Small Workplaces,” by The Wall Street Journal and “5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America,” by Inc.
This month, they will launch the newly patented design, the Hero Wagon, retrofitted specifically to transport sick children safely. Robert’s biggest challenge has been reinventing the company, which he’s done by focusing exclusively on children’s toys, expanding product development and moving manufacturing abroad. These flashy, frozen ride on toy cheaper wagons could take on a wider range of designs than the company’s classic metal-stamped variety. Even in the depths of the downturn, the company sold around 1,500 wagons a day. The wagons were a hit with his customers who wanted them as toys for their kids, so Pasin started making them under the name Liberty Coasters.
In the era of the station wagon, Radio Steel began producing its Radio Rancher Convertible, a high-capacity wagon with removable steel stake sides. Beginning in 1957, the company branched out, for the first time making garden carts. These were not toys, but metal carts designed to haul yard waste, perhaps a shrewd line extension in view of the growth of suburbia and suburban gardens. Although Pasin’s background was in woodworking, he soon became enamored of a new technology, metal stamping. Henry Ford had used metal stamping in his automobile factories, where huge machines stamped identical pieces out of sheets of steel.