Our visit today to the DRES facility was very enlightening as far as design thinking for the wheelchair industry. I think the overarching takeaway I had was that there is not a lack of innovation or even accommodation. Many of today’s problems are centered around accessibility, and mainly affordability. We were poised with the challenge of thinking how to have wheelchairs and components inexpensively find their way into Africa while accounting for the harsh terrain found there. The make this a cost-effective solution requires a lot more than simply donations. The cost to ship and transport the chair make this sort of effort almost not worth it.
Through my discussions with Ron, we ultimately concluded that there are 2 overarching possible projects I’d like to explore. An IKEA styled wheel chair could be the solution to both accessibility and affordability problems. If the components were able to be sustainably reproduced, then the locals would easily be able to repair and edit the wheelchairs however they would like to. The IKEA styled mechanics would also allow the chair to be compactly shipped in a box or a small container on a largo cargo. If the local regions received the wheelchairs could then be exposed to technologies such as 3D printers, then they could maintain the wheelchair themselves for the remainder of its longevity. Creating this solution would eliminate the issue shipping heavy and preassembled items.
The other solution we thought was creating tracs for the wheelchairs, so they could more easily traverse terrains like snow, sleet, dirt, and sand. Many transportation vehicles already possess this ability so drawing inspiration from something like a bulldozer could lead to a possible solution. Early issues we saw was the installation and removal of these tracs. The wheelchair user would have to easily be able to ride up onto the tracs and then somehow safely attach them to the wheels. Although this may not be feasible to focus on in this course because it would be quite difficult to engineer such a device using 3D printed materials or Arduinos.
Although I also came to realize that the most feasible business case would be to gather data on which component of the wheelchair is most prone to repairs and simply 3D print those parts. In low-income areas, we can simply send the software file, so they are able to print it themselves locally. Innovating simple solutions to large problems is what we’re striving for – especially for a demographic which is oftentimes so overlooked.
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