Innovative walker attachment offers mobility, safety to user
Published: July 10, 2023
Author: Dave Bell
The team that developed a wheeled walker is shown with their prototype. Professor Daniel Raja is at left and team members are Pedro Azevedo, Hanru Wu, Alison Klaus, Desirae Yost, and Gabriel Sempertegui.
People who rely on a walker because of an injury or age-related mobility challenges often struggle negotiating stairs. To help, a team of Greenville University students last spring developed an innovative solution to make the climb easier and safer.
Three senior engineering students – Pedro Azevedo (mechanical engineering), Alison Klaus (chemical engineering), and Hanru Wu (mechanical engineering) came up with a senior project that added a rotating three-wheeled attachment to the front legs of a standard walker to enhance its stability on stairs. They were joined by two other students – Gabriel Sempertegui (psychology) and Desirae Yost (business management) – to expand the project into an Experience First exercise by collecting consumer data, connecting with the product’s target market, and creating a business plan. The project coach was engineering professor Daniel Raja.
They unveiled their innovation at this spring’s Common Day of Learning, a day set aside for presentations by groups that have been working on projects throughout the semester.
It was a project that almost didn’t happen.
“We haven’t even been working on this for a full semester,” said Azevedo. “We had a problem with another project we’d started working on, so we got a late start with this one.”
The walker idea came when a team member found several old five-inch wheels in a storage area in a Snyder Hall lab. After some group brainstorming and conversations with walker users, they realized they just might have a useful idea. Midway through the process of developing a prototype, the design shifted from two wheels to three wheels on each front leg, and an increase in wheel diameter from five inches to six inches. The wheels are attached to a three-lobed caster that rotates as the walker encounters a stair – allowing the user to go up or down stairs with consistent support and without lifting the walker.
“We were seeking a mechanism that would give us maximum stability while keeping the weight as light as possible,” said Klaus. “The wheel mechanisms weigh less than three pounds total, so it should be a manageable weight for all users. And the larger wheels allow the user to negotiate any size steps.”
The innovative walker attachment has received positive reviews from early users. And team members say they intend to patent the three-wheeled mechanism.
“This could be a real morale booster for older people and people worldwide who don’t have accommodations for disabilities,” Klaus said. “It’s a simple idea, but apparently no one has done it before.”
