Hand Drive your Wheelchair with 3D-Printing

The easy accessibility of Rapid Prototyping has opened the doors for development allowing those with ideas that might not otherwise have seen the light of day to make the stage.  That is exactly what has happened with Kate Reed and Nathaniel Tong.  The two designers have teamed up to produce the wheelchair attachment you can see above.  It is a relatively simple attachment which will allow the wheelchair to be powered via a rowing motion.

Lever powered wheelchairs already exist- designed to engage more muscle groups and make getting about easier. However, they can cost up to $10,000.  Compared to this clever attachment, which is open source, costing no more than the price of materials- about $40.  As the pieces are printed, they can be customised to fit the needs of the user- such as being made smaller to fit the hands of a child.

The parts required are relatively simple- six 3D-printed parts, screws, lock nuts, some aluminium pole, a mountain bike brake assembly, a bicycle brake cable and a spring.

Kate and Nathaniel were inspired to create this upon discovering the financial struggles that many wheelchair users face- with statistics placing them as less likely to have jobs and more likely to live in poverty.  They are continuing to work on their hand drive mechanism, improving it’s speed and reliability.