This project will involve creating a wheelchair that is capable of sliding right into a paraglider!
DAY 2: Completed sourcing of the materials for making the chassis based on the 3D modelling. Fabrication of the chassis was completed with bending, welding, and so on. And setup a simulator to test the load distribution of the chassis and harness. Based on our simulator testing, the harness of the parachute was attached to the chassis.
DAY 1 - We took measurements for several different demographics which included the Indians and the french to get general measurements that we could use to build the chassis. Further, we designed the 3D model on fusion 360. Finally, we built a scaled prototype.
We studied various designs of the existing wheelchair models designed for paragliding, available in the market. We looked at the gliding videos to understand the lift off, gliding and landing stages. We also studied these models to understand the existing chassis structures and suspension models.
The chassis is designed for 50 percentile male. In order to accommodate different users – we did dimensioning exercise with 7 users of varying body size.
For this we made a jig on wooden table and fitted it with back support at an angle. Then we took measurements for all the users for different knee and ankle positions. The users included 2 Indian male, 2 French male, 2 Indian Female, 1 French Female. We considered the average positions for dimensioning the chassis.
Based on the dimensions finalized, a line drawing of the wheel chair chassis was prepared using Autodesk Fusion 360 in 1:1 scale, with the pilot and the passenger.