DEALING WITH WHEELING

Have you ever sat in a wheelchair and taken it out for a spin? Not the motorized kind, but the ones where you have to grab the wheels and push them in the direction you want to go? It’s actually quite fun at first. It takes quite a bit of practice to get it down, but you can go just about anywhere, provided your path is fairly flat and easy to go over like concrete sidewalks with graduated ramps for easy access.

 

If your path is a rocky, rutted, potholed, dirt road with areas of mud and debris in your way, like you would find in many poor and undeveloped countries in the world, the ride in your wheelchair is much more different. For most wheelchair designs, there is not going to be a ride at all.

 

You will need the awesome T-1000 Off-Road Titanium Spring Action Model, complete with shock absorbing front struts and a synchronized flywheel gyro for high speed balance control. The knobby tires and flared mud flaps are essential for overcoming the demands of off-road travel.

 

Unfortunately, it would require the combined income derived from the full time work of three generations of a family living in most developing countries to pay for the T-1000. And if by chance one of these wheelchairs fell from the sky, and some poor disabled person found it, it would soon end up being a rusted heap in his front yard because he can’t get any parts for it!

 

Thanks to the efforts of four students in Mr. Pickar’s Sustainable Engineering for the Developing World class at the California Institute of Technology, this dilemma may be solved.

 

They designed a light weight, heavy duty, off-road wheelchair that is completely designed using used bicycle parts. Bicycles are the most common form of transportation in poor developing countries so parts and labor are easily obtained when repairs are needed.

 

These students have since started a non-profit organization called Intelligent Mobility International. They have partnered with a company in Guatamala who hires wheelchair bound people to build these wheelchairs. They are working hard to squeeze production costs down to $40 per wheelchair! 

 

Check it out here: www.intelligentmobility.org