For my freshman year final engineering design project at McMaster University, I worked in a team with 4 individuals to design and create a product that would help a client assigned to us by the university. Our client was a young individual diagnosed with spina bifida, a condition that inhibits the development of the spinal cord and causes paralysis in the lower body. Our client used a wheelchair to move around and mentioned that they had difficulty charging their phone due to the location of charging ports. Most charging ports tend to be in lower locations, making it difficult for our client to reach them without assistance.
Our group decided to focus on this problem by designing and creating a prototype for a tool that would allow our client to charge their phone more often without needing to rely on charging ports. The idea was to have some type of storage container that could be attached to the wheelchair. This container would hold a power bank with wireless charging capabilities. The idea was that this power bank could be charged whenever our client has access to charging ports, such as at home. Then, whenever our client was out and about, they could simply place their phone inside the container which would both keep the phone safe from weather conditions and charge it at the same time.
Our first task, after discussing what we wanted to do, was to create a design. We created multiple different designs out of cardboard and such, but decided that the final design should be a hardshell case that has a lid and is horizontally oriented. This design would allow our client to easily place their phone inside the container and close the lid to keep it safe. The container would be attached to the wheelchair using a belt that could be adjusted to fit the size of the wheelchair. The container itself would be split into two parts: one to house the power bank, and another to shelter the phone. Our CAD model of the design can be seen below:
Wheelchair Charger CAD Model
The next step after this was to take this design and actually 3D print it. We used a hot glue gun to attach the plastic components of the lid together and we used a random belt for the belt attachment. The final product can be seen below:
3D Printed Wheelchair Charger
In retrospect, this project was our first real step into “engineering,” or rather, the process of designing and creating a product that solves a problem. While the overall idea of this project was fairly simple, the process of creating it was anything but, and getting our feet wet with that process was our main takeaway from this project.