Project development (individual)
- Describe your partner
My partner is called Orange. She is an energetic, open-minded, positive woman. She attended Hackability in the summer, and she got the product from that workshop, which is a cup holder. She is easy-going, and the communication between us is smooth. Orange is very observant of life. When asked if there was anything inconvenient for her in our academic building, she gave her answer: some elevators for 1-15F have no handrails or lower buttons, and she can’t push the higher ones. Also, some floors do not have accessible toilets for the disabled, and even if they did, the slope of the step of the accessible toilet was too steep for her wheelchair to climb. She is good at finding many small things in life and can inspire my partners and me a lot.
2. What are their desires/challenges/difficulties?
She is clear about what her problem is and what the requirement would be, which helps us define the question we need to solve. Her main difficulty is that when it rains, it is inconvenient for her to hold the umbrella with one hand and control the wheelchair with the other. She wants us to help her make an umbrella holder that could attach to her wheelchair to support her umbrella. She wants to put away the umbrella stand when it’s not raining.
3. What is your project? 1 paragraph description + Pictures or Photos or Videos
Our project is a removable, collapsible, stable umbrella holder. It is mainly made of steel and plastic, as shown in the figure below, so it’s stable enough to support the umbrella. There are many rotating areas on the holder, so the holder can easily adjust the angle according to the needs of Orange. This product can help Orange to free her hands on rainy days, and she doesn’t have to worry about going out on rainy days. When not in use, the holder can be secured to the chair by straps.
4. Development process. Include photos and video(s)
We made the first model out of paper, determining where the holder should be placed in the wheelchair, how to rotate it, how to fold it. And then, we tested the second prototype made out of the harder material, a water pipe, to see how hard the material should be to support the umbrella and further discussed how to fix the bottom of the umbrella. Then we got the harder stuff, assemble the parts, and discussed how the holder could be attached to the wheelchair. We tried many different rotating angles and positions, and finally found a reasonable model (as shown in the figure below). When not in use, the holder can be easily put away. Combined with the pictures of the wheelchair, we have decided which part of the wheelchair we are going to install the holder.
Last Tuesday, we met Orange and tested the prototype in her wheelchair. It turned out that the vertical length was too short and it needed to be increased.
Also, according to the requirements of Orange, the transverse length of the support should be shortened. Since each part of the holder had been completely connected, my partner and I decided to take the holder apart, reassemble and connect it. We removed the four iron pipes from the previous two prototypes, using the shorter one as the transverse pipe and the longest one as the longitudinal pipe. We used heated glue and screws to make the holder solid enough to hold the umbrella. So the length problem is solved.
Also, when the holder is not in use, after discussing with Orange, we decided to use a strap to tie it onto the wheelchair. We attached the hook and loop fastener to the pipe using heated glue so that it can tie the other pipe firmly.
What’s more, when interviewing with Orange, she told us that she seldom goes out at night because she’s afraid the cars on the road won’t be able to see her wheelchair, which could be dangerous. To solve this problem, we put reflective stickers on orange’s wheelchair in all directions, so that when the lights hit orange’s wheelchair, the stickers will reflect light, making orange safer to go out at night.
