Napier man’s invention: Is it a chair? Is it a table? Turns out it’s both

It’s not quite true necessity has been the mother of all Louwrens Burger’s inventions.

After all, he does have “a human-sized robot” at home, which we’ll get to in a minute.

But the engineer’s most recent idea is essential to the future wellbeing of his family.

The Burgers left Rustenberg in South Africa six years ago, for a better life in Hawke’s Bay.

Louwrens worked for local firms before setting up his own business, which recently gave birth to his latest invention.

“This came at a time when there was no work and I thought ‘I’ve got to do something’, he said.

“If you are in a position or a corner like I am, and you don’t have any way to move forward, you’ve got to make a plan.”

Cue a park bench that doubles as a picnic table, which could also do with some bright spark finding something catchy to call it.

“This is not a folding table. It’s an opening and closing table,” Burger said.

“I haven’t come up with a name yet. It’s just a bench opening up to a picnic table.”

Seeing - and sitting on - these things is believing, as is watching the way they seamlessly transition from one use to the other.

The first took over a fortnight to build and Burger, who’s in the absolute infancy of this endeavour but has now got the making of each down to just a day, has sold two at $750 a pop.

“There’s a lot of time in this. Even just the wood is a three-day process,” Burger said.

“I’ll only make money when I can sell them on a big scale.”

Council parks, where he can fix them to concrete slabs, is one potential avenue Burger sees. Big-box retail is another.

Engineer and inventor Louwrens Burger with his latest creation. Photo / Paul Taylor

At this stage, he’s doing the two-seater variety but can widen them to three without significantly increasing the weight or creating “pinch points and sharp points” in the folding mechanism.

“I don’t want people feeling sorry for us, but this was basically my last resort to think out of the box,” he said.

While he sees this as a way to keep his engineering firm going, Burger’s no stranger to building things in his spare time.

Despite working 10-hour days, he also put his 3D printing skills to the test in designing the aforementioned robot.

“So that robot is actually standing in my garage at the moment with a bag over its head, to keep the dust off it.

“It works, except it can’t walk yet. It can talk, it can move its arms.”

Hamish Bidwell joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2022 and works out of the Hastings newsroom.