Goal and Problem Statement

Our goal was to design and build a prototype for a mechanism that can fit within a powered wheelchair and lift a person’s body weight in multiple different locations such that body weight is shifted. The wheelchair design will comprise of a grid of individual square sections which can be actuated vertically when needed where each of these grids will have motion arbitrarily to one another in order to accomplish a random motion. By incorporating unique platform motion into our grid, we believe that using the grid, the person's weight can be moved around which can provide temporary relief to the quadriplegic patient after long hours of inactivity.

One of our largest constraints was that the mechanism built must be able to lock in place and hold that weight without failing. This is in order to provide safety to the patient when in use as well as to provide the position of choice to the patient. Additionally, our second constraint was that we desired a single input in order to incorporate an electric motor in later designs.

Problem Statement: Design a mechanism by which a person’s body weight can be moved with little effort from the person.