This week we joined with designers, makers, disabled people and disability experts to help shape the future of wheelchair design. Disrupt Disability are working to create the world’s first modular wheelchair system, to give more people access to wheelchairs that properly fit and can be customised however they choose.
The Disrupt Disability team are collaborating on a ‘hub’ design that will allow different modules to be assembled and create a fully functioning wheelchair. At Machines Room, teams worked to develop new interchangable wheelchair modules, led by wheelchair users who came prepared with their own wheelchair wish lists.
We were joined by finalists and winners of the RSA Student Design Awards who presented their innovative wheelchair designs, including a stylish indoor wheelchair designed by Nelson Noll, and a retrofitted device to help manual wheelchair users easily get up hills by Tom Dell.
To begin the hackathon, wheelchair users discussed their own experiences of using a wheelchair with their teams and decided on an area for improvement. With plenty of post-it notes and sketching, the teams began to form ideas for interchangeable wheelchair seats, backrests and drive modules.
Prototypes and models began to take shape, with some teams managing to translate their ideas into CAD drawings ready for 3D printing and full scale manufacture.
At the end of a long day’s discussuon and designing each team presented their ideas, which ranged from a process for designing a backrest using 3D scanning to a gallery-worthy collection of concepts for stylish wheelchair seats. With time to complete full scale prototypes and refine the designs, these ideas could be go on to be part of the world’s first modular wheelchair!
Find out more about Disrupt Disability and how you can get involved here.