Entry: The Wheelchair Assister

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A portion of the general public is disabled, whether through dysfunctional body parts or mental illnesses. Among this part of the population, many are confined to wheelchairs. If these people drop an item of theirs, they often need assistance to pick it up. Most of the time they don't get this human help, and are forced to get it themselves. This would not be a problem except for the fact that they can't pick it up on their own. They would have to have extremely long arms to do so, or they would have to fall off of the wheelchair, which does no good. To circumvent this problem, I built "The Wheelchair Assister".

This robot is equipped with sixty-two links of treads on each side that allow it to traverse a wide variety of terrain. The terrain that matters is over fallen toys, over five inch stairs (shown in video), and over any floor surface, including tile, hardwood floors, and carpet. Then it has the scoop which does what the name says. It scoops underneath the item, and the the arm picks it up. The arm is geared seven to one which means seven turns of the motor will turn the arm once. This is not only to keep in control, but also to increase strength to allow lifting of bigger loads. Then finally the main structure. The chassis is built of four L-channels that form a square. The front side of the treads are elevated to the weight is in the back. Also the micro controller, motors for the arm, and the battery are all placed in the back. Now you probably think "This doesn't promote a center of gravity", but that is exactly the point. To pick up bigger loads(fallen items), and prevent tipping forward because of this, the weight is in the back to counteract the weight of the load. All of this factors into easily helping the disabled person "pick up" a fallen item on their own.

Disabled people around the world will be able to easily pick up fallen items, which would make their life so much easier if this became a widely affordable product.

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