Being confined to a wheelchair severely limits the scope of activities that one can engage in. Besides the problem of access to buildings and public facilities which has been somewhat  improved by modern building construction, curb cuts etc., many other activities are difficult for the wheelchair occupant to accomplish. For example, many pay telephones are too high to reach from a wheelchair. Workbenches and machinery are too high. Even the typical kitchen sink and cabinets are out of reach.

    These physical problems constrain activity but there are also psychological penalties associated with being in a wheelchair. The occupant is always in a seated position when interacting with other, standing, people. Eye to eye contact is thus restricted and even the simple social activity of shaking hands can be psychologically compromised by the disparity in elevation between the able-bodied and the wheelchair occupant. Thus there is a need for a new wheelchair design which will allow the occupant to raise himself to a standing or semi-standing position for periods of time.

    For simplicity, we will consider the case of a paraplegic who has upper torso stability and strength. To accommodate a quadraplegic would be a more difficult problem as he cannot control his upper body. A paraplegic often has a non-powered wheelchair, so for this task we would like a simple and inexpensive manually powered stand-up wheelchair.

    We need you to design it. We want some creative preliminary designs which are potentially superior to any that might now be on the market. The section titled "A Design Process" in Chapter 1 will help you to get started and guide you to potential solutions. Please read it carefully. (It really works!). Also read Chapter 18 for some insight into the design process.

    The only constraints imposed on the problem are that the device must be safe and it must provide stable and non-traumatic motions to the occupant's body. Full joints are preferred to half joints and simplicity is the mark of good design. A linkage solution with manual input is desired.

    You must follow the Design Process to fully define and constrain the problem. You must do Background Research into the problem and any existing solutions. You must create a general Goal Statement. You must generate a list of at least 15 Task Specifications.

    As with any design problem, there is an infinity of solutions possible. You are expected to come up with one solution which will work. To do so you will have to try out many alternate designs and iterate to your 'best' solution. You should expect to typically go through at least ten iterations before arriving at an acceptable one.

    There will not be a need for extensive analysis in this project as it is a preliminary design concept study. However you are expected to do a "first order analysis" to determine the feasibility of your design. This must include, at a minimum, analysis of the degree of freedom of your design, its grashof condition (if applicable), the input force or torque required, the minimum transmission angles and any other parameters you think important. You must also do a stability analysis of your design in all relevant positions to ensure that it will not tip over and injure the occupant. To do this you will need to use the skills you learned in your prior statics course (ES 2501) involving force and moment analysis.

    You are also required to document your solution in a professional engineering report which adheres to the "Project Report Specifications" document attached. This report will document the process by which you iterated to your final design as well as the design. Do not just describe the final result. Rather show me how you arrived at it, including the failures encountered along the way. This will demonstrate to me that you understand the engineering concepts and the relevant course material. A working cardboard model of at least one plane (one side) of your design is required.

Some suggestions to get you started:

1. Do research before trying to solve the problem! Don't 'shoot from the hip'. Avoid BFI (Brute Force and Ignorance). Engineer it.

2. Let Ol' Wheelchair get ya. Try one out.

3. Investigate the user's needs. Interview the users.

4. Mr. Hrones and Mr. Nelson might help.

5. Prof. Zhang, Norton, Hammond might also.

6. Cardboard models make designing much easier.

IMPORTANT! IMPORTANT!