Electric Wheelchair Attachment
Format
SOECS Senior Project Demonstration
Faculty Mentor Name
Kyle Watson
Faculty Mentor Department
Mechanical Engineering
Abstract/Artist Statement
The worldwide rise in obesity has created an unexpectedly dangerous environment for healthcare workers. These dangers are present in the physical exertion of force upon the entire back when pushing a patient in a wheelchair. In addition to healthcare professionals, family, or friends, wheelchair users don’t have the ability to push themselves in the correct manner. This lack of proper form causes the user to develop health issues in their shoulder joints over time. To counteract the risk of physical injury, many electric wheelchairs along with a few attachments for manual wheelchairs exist in the market. However, these are either expensive, non-universal, or both. Our senior project goal has been to create an efficient, lightweight, and low-cost attachment that can be installed to a wide variety of manual wheelchairs to convert their source of propulsion to electric. This has been done by using two DC motors, each powering an individual wheel on the chair through a secondary manufactured wheel. These motors are powered using an internal battery that can be charged externally and are controlled by a joystick controller that can be placed in any convenient location for the user. The simple, yet effective style of this device ensures that the user can continuously install it from wheelchair to wheelchair.
Location
School of Engineering & Computer Science
Start Date
4-5-2018 2:30 PM
End Date
4-5-2018 4:00 PM
Electric Wheelchair Attachment
School of Engineering & Computer Science
The worldwide rise in obesity has created an unexpectedly dangerous environment for healthcare workers. These dangers are present in the physical exertion of force upon the entire back when pushing a patient in a wheelchair. In addition to healthcare professionals, family, or friends, wheelchair users don’t have the ability to push themselves in the correct manner. This lack of proper form causes the user to develop health issues in their shoulder joints over time. To counteract the risk of physical injury, many electric wheelchairs along with a few attachments for manual wheelchairs exist in the market. However, these are either expensive, non-universal, or both. Our senior project goal has been to create an efficient, lightweight, and low-cost attachment that can be installed to a wide variety of manual wheelchairs to convert their source of propulsion to electric. This has been done by using two DC motors, each powering an individual wheel on the chair through a secondary manufactured wheel. These motors are powered using an internal battery that can be charged externally and are controlled by a joystick controller that can be placed in any convenient location for the user. The simple, yet effective style of this device ensures that the user can continuously install it from wheelchair to wheelchair.