School: Raffles Institution
Team members: Vishnu R Menon, Kuan Sheng Yuan Jethro
As we continue our progress, we often overlook a particular and significant group of people - the physically handicapped.
We do not want this to happen and hence focused our idea to target the movement-impaired, specifically the wheelchair-bound. Often, wheelchair users have to get the help of another person just to pass a curb or a gap like a drain without a cover. This problem increases their dependency on other people and reduces their accessibility and mobility.
Hence, to tackle this common problem that is often overlooked, we have come up with a simple but effective and innovative idea, ‘RevAMP’.
Description of RevAMP
We intend to create a product easily attachable and detachable to any wheelchair. This product will enable people on wheel chairs to “climb” up curbs and stairs, without worrying whether there are wheelchair ramps around for accessing that particular level. This is particularly applicable to less developed countries, where the government do not pay much attention to these issues. Initially, without the ramps, the wheelchair-bound would either have to find an alternate route, which is not only time consuming, but would also be tiring or depend on another person.
Furthermore, the ramp will also come handy when wheelchair users have to cross drains that are not covered. To solve the problem of lack of ramps, we thought of creating a mobile ramp, which can be extended and retracted. When extended, the person on the wheelchair can then scale up the stairs, and when done, retract the ramp back into place.
For example, if a wheelchair-bound person needs to cross a drain without a cover. All he needs to do is to extend the ramp and move over.He could then retract the ramp, and continue his journey on the other side of the drain. The process could be repeated as many times as wanted, so the person would never have to worry of being unable to cross from place to place.
Possible difficulties
The wheelchair-bound might not have enough strength to push themselves up the stairs, since it is inclined, as they would be working against gravity. However, The scaling the stairs can be made totally mechanised, removing the need to manually control the ramp and wheelchair.
Our product is a small and compact but serves its purpose well. This makes it suitable for low-cost mass production, and the project is thus a feasible one. Furthermore, this mechanism can be attached to wheelchairs that are currently being used. Hence, users to do not need to pay for a whole new wheelchair, just to enjoy this feature.
Our wishes
Through this project, we wish to accomplish two things.
One is to encourage more people to make use of knowledge from the field of Science and Technology and apply it in helping the community by setting an example of such projects.
The second is help make the lives of the physically disabled much better. Finally, we hope to materialize this idea with the support of Create 2011.
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