Re-inventing the wheelchair

Wheelchairs help people gain mobility and recent improvements include comfort, lighter materials and better bearings. But there is still room for improvement. Although access to buildings has greatly improved, it can still be prohibitive if there are not ramps in places such as historic buildings or where the ramps require a significant detour. And wheelchairs can sometimes struggle in small or narrow lifts. And it is not just access to buildings. Many wheelchairs do not work very well when taken off road such as going through parks, going to an outdoor festival or similar activities on grass can prove difficult. The other major bug bear is that people are always sitting. This creates several scenarios, the first is it is difficult to reach the top of a supermarket shelf or cupboard at home. The second is more psychological and it is the feeling of people looking down on you and not being able to talk to them at the same eye level. The challenge Our challenge this month is to come up with a better wheelchair design for general purpose use that addresses some of these problems. The design can use electronics, clever mechanisms, and hopefully not look much like a conventional wheelchair at all. It could use a single wheel and balance using a gyro much like the Segways, or possibly use tracks to allow it to climb stairs. And there are some concepts that do away with wheels completely. Skeletal suits are beginning to appear on the market designed to assist people with walking difficulties. One of the key things is making the user able to stand up, or at least feel like they are stood up, possibly by allowing the wheelchair to tilt or swivel in to an upright position. There is no one solution to this months challenge, only numerous designs that go someway to addressing these problems. We will publish some of what we consider to be the best in next month's issue. See if you can come up with anything better. Solution One of the best designs for last month's coffee time challenge – to come up with a better wheelchair design – comes from Jake Eadie, an Australian design engineer. His concept, Modiv, recently won a James Dyson Award for design. The concept is unique as allows the user to go between a sit and stand mode. The wheelchair which is powered by electric motors, also uses an electric actuator to operate a mechanism to move the wheel chair from a sitting down to upright position. The ride quality of the wheelchair has also been considered and larger tyres on the wheels and sophisticated suspension configuration will allow for a smoother ride. The three wheel configuration will also allow for greater manoeuvrability. Eadie plans to construct the wheelchair from lightweight materials and is currently looking for manufacturers to take the design in to production. It does, however, still have some limitation in terms of climbing stairs, and is does have a larger space envelope. These are both aspects that Eadie is looking to address in the future.