A Wheel That Fails on Purpose#
Lecture 3 — SLOP2236
The drift is not a manufacturing defect.#
The trolley as prosthesis#
- a wheeled extension of the shopper’s body, not a container for their goods
- built with just enough failure in it to keep that body moving past shelves it hadn’t planned to see
- the basket-to-cart escalation runs the same logic, scaled up
Containment dressed as convenience#
A trolley that tracked perfectly straight would let you leave as directly as you arrived. That’s exactly what it’s built not to do.
The moment it stops being a container#
Wheel geometry decides where a cart stops carrying your goods and starts leashing your body through aisles it didn’t choose.
Before next week#
- push an empty trolley in a straight line for ten metres
- note what your arms do to correct it
- come with one way your body already compensates for the drift without deciding to