In recent years, the fashion industry has made attempts to address the lack of fashionable and functional products for disabled people, a traditionally under-served community, with adaptive designs such as magnetic closures and easy-to-zip pieces.
Manual wheelchair drivers often experience reduced mobility in winter snow and slush; Wheelblades address this problem. Wheelblades are small skiis that attach to the front wheels of a manual wheelchair. Their wide contact surface distributes the wheelchair driver’s pressure evenly over the ground, preventing the small front wheels from sinking into the snow. Wheelblades are quickly and easily clipped over a wheelchair’s small front wheels, and due to their small size and weight they are easy to carry around once you reach your destination. Wheelblades can also be attached to the small front wheels of baby strollers to help parents push their little ones through the snow.
GRIT is a social enterprise startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We believe in a stakeholder-driven design process, where the people who use a technology help to design it. We started working together while we were students studying mechanical engineering at MIT, and we founded GRIT to make the Freedom Chair a reality. We have put our blood, sweat and tears into this product and we can’t wait to see what you will do with it.
You are unique and special, so why not choose a bespoke wheelchair that is as individual as you?
Carbon Black is so different to every other wheelchair available on the market in many ways, not least the number of choices available, making your chair unique to you. Every wheelchair user has different needs and requirements, which is why every Carbon Black wheelchair is made bespoke and tailored exactly to each customer’s requirements.
The Action Trackchair is an off-road electric wheelchair for those who want greater access to outdoor activities like hunting, hiking, going to the beach, and fishing. The Action Trackchair uses large treads to gain traction over uneven or slippery terrain. The chairs are wider than standard electric wheelchairs, with models running from 37″ to 43″ in width. The chair has a top speed of 5 mph, and can be outfitted with a variety of accessories like a fishing rob holder, gun rack, or LED headlights. The newest model, the Action Trackstander, can even convert from a seated to a standing position and will be available in 2013.
The 4wd Permoveh wheelchair revolutionizes the wheelchair industry with it’s omnidirectional wheels. Invented by a team of Kyoto University researchers under the guidance of Masaharu Komori, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Permoveh has wheels within it’s wheels enabling sideways and diagonal movement at the drop of a dime. The device’s name is short for ‘Personal Mobility Vehicle’ and it is operated via a hand-held control by it’s user. The goal of this device is not only for people with limited mobility to become mobile, but also to ease access when moving through areas with limited space. According to the university, the wheel technology used could be simulated in factory and warehouse use for mobilizing conveyor equipment. The current top speed of this next-generation prototype is 3.7 mph, costing about $36,300 to create. While this device has not yet gone on the market, the main goals of Komori and his team are to make the Permoveh more compact, to reduce the current cost, and to market the product within 3 – 5 years.