Living up north is always a hassle especially when the winter season starts to hit. Everyone has to shovel their sidewalks and driveways and even when you think you are done ice can still make you slip so you need to either chip it away with an ice breaker or pour salt all over it. I decided it would be great to have a device that could try to kill two birds with one stone. The shovel pick is a shovel that works like the back side of a hammer. You can shovel the road with one side and pierce through the ice with the other. You will no longer need two separate tools to clear out your drive way and it can be as clear as it is in the summer.

Step 1: Conception and Obstacles

The whole idea started when I looked out my window and saw a blizzard covering a huge parking lot. I remembered the days I had to come home from school and shovel the driveway of my house for my parents and how hard it was to clear everything away. Thats when I had the idea of combining the teeth of a garden rake with a shovel to help mash the ice. Over the past two weeks I've talked with friend who is very much into engineering projects and we concluded that the biggest concerns would be preserving the integrity of the shovel, durably, and safety. Fortunately in our model we were able to resolve and overcome all three.

Step 2: Materials Required

In order to make the shovel pick you need

A metal show shovel

A marker

Size 8 stainless steel machine screws

Size 8 stainless steel Lock Washers

Size 8 stainless steel Hex nuts

A philips screw driver

And a power drill with a size 8 drill bit.

Its important the shovel is metal and a snow pusher specifically because of its shape and its durability. Also for safety precautions I recommend using flat tipped machine screws rather than sharp or self drilling screws.

Step 3: Prepping Your Shovel

Before you start drilling. Make some evenly spaced reference points on your shovel so you know where to start puncturing the metal. You can mark your drilling points either by scratching into the paint of the shovel or marking it with a marker in a straight line. 6 to 8 points should be enough. You don't want your points to be very low because it will get in the way of your shoveling but you also don't want them too high up or your screws wont make contact with the ice. its also important to measure the distance from the curved point in your shovel to the ground The length of screws i used for my shovel pick were 1" long but you might need a different length depending on the the slope of your shovel.

Step 4: Drilling Your Holes

Put your size 8 drill bit into your drill and start drilling your holes into the points of the shovel you have marked. Make sure you keep the shovel held down and secure because you will need to apply a little bit of force to puncture through the metal.

Step 5: Preparing the Screws

Take 6 or 8 of your screws screws depending on how many holes you made and place stainless steel washer on all of them. This should ensure that all the screws are on a flat surface so they don't bend off in different directions.

Insert all of your washer covered screws into the drilled holes of your shovel.

Step 6: Apply Your Hex Nuts

After all your screws are set into place add all your hex nuts on to all of your screws screws behind your shovel. Wind them up to the manually with your fingers till the nuts are close to the top.

Once they are all close to the top use your screwdriver to finish tightening the screws into place. You might need to push from below where the hex nuts are as you finish screwing in the screws. Make sure all of the screws are firmly locked into place. And now you should be ready to take on your drive way.

Step 7: Conclusion.

By the end of this you should have a multifunctional shovel that can help chip away ice as well as shovel snow. The back side is still a tad bit more dangerous than it was before so be careful when using it. There are a few improvements that could be still made to its design. But hopefully this will help improve clearing out the drive way.