Meeting Time
Wednesday 6PM
Project Description
The goal of this project is to design an adaptive snowboard that allows people with physical disabilities to ride and control a snowboard. A normal snowboard is mainly geared using the rider’s feet and legs, but it also involves overall body core use as well. This project is to design an adaptive snowboard for disabled individuals without use of their lower limbs. One primary challenge in this project is designing a snowboard that allows for shifting of weight to turn, slow down, and stop, without using poles for assistance. This is very challenging to do because parapelegic individuals do not have control of lower limbs, limiting their ability to control movements and apply force. The design must be light and small enough to fit on the ski lift as well as easy to flip over in case of a fall.
Our current proposed solution is a snowboard design that allows paraplegic individuals to ride down a ski-slope sideways. The current approach is to develop a brand-new snowboard design with mechanical parts that allow a paraplegic individual to mount and control a snowboard without any outside assistance. To date we have 6 CAD prototypes and 0 physical prototypes, which are not functional nor have the correct materials/dimensions. We are planning to complete a fully functional CAD prototype and a non-functional physical prototype by the end of the semester with assistance from the community partner and professionals in the industry.