The Gateway Coalition believes that education is best enhanced through experience.  By sponsoring this design project, Gateway gives students the opportunity to enhance traditional classroom skills by confronting the problems of a real-world experience.  Concurrent Engineering integrates marketing, manufacturing, design, and product development as the process of the entire project is completed.  This multi-university project encourages significant interaction among the schools, enabling students to improve communication and teamwork skills, which are necessary for today's industry.

Problem Statement

    People with disabilities constitute a large percentage of the American population.  This includes those who have difficulty using their hands and arms to control and manipulate their environment.  The purpose of this project is to design and manufacture a robotic manipulator to assist with daily activities, such as retrieving things from the ground or exploring the immediate environment. This device must be simple to operate in order to be used by younger patients that are often overlooked by the commercial market.  The base of this device will be mounted on an electric wheelchair.  Minimum parameters are as follows:

0.75 m reach from front  wheel of wheelchair

Lift .5 kg mass (1.1 lbs.)

Maximum cost of $6,000, including controls

The robotic arm will be mounted on an Invacare Action Storm Series wheelchair fitted with a Junior Seat.  Pictures of OSU's trial day with this wheelchair exhibit and adult seat.