Skip to main content

Ingenious 3D printed wheelchair lever makes pushing more efficient

1hand drive lever wheelchair hand
When challenged to hack a wheelchair and build the best one possible, students Kate Reed and Stefano Pagani of NuVu innovation school and Nathaniel Tong of Rochester Institute of Technology came up with an award-winning idea. The trio developed the Hand Drive, an affordable 3D printed attachment that allows any wheelchair to be powered by an efficient lever-powered rowing motion.

Rather than reinvent the wheelchair, Reed, Pagani and Tong decided to improve upon existing wheelchair designs. The trio focused on a lever wheelchair model which uses a lever mechanism and rowing motion to move a person forward. Not only is a lever-equipped wheelchair easier on a person’s shoulders and wrists, but it also is faster than push-wheel propulsion that relies on the hands to push the wheels forward. Lever wheelchairs are efficient, but their price tag, which ranges from $2,000 – $10,000, puts them out of the reach of most people.

Related Videos

The students wanted to make this system affordable, so they decided to create their own lever that can be retrofitted onto existing wheelchairs. They began with a handful of bicycle parts but found the components were not suitable a wheelchair since they only allowed movement in one direction. The team went back to the drawing board and decided to create their own custom mechanism, using a 3D printer to supply most of the parts they needed.

hand-drive-prototype
After experimenting with different designs including five major prototypes, the trio decided to use a milled planetary ratchet with a circular detent in the middle. This mechanism allows the ratchets to engage and disengage depending on whether a user is moving forward to backward. The internal ratchets are fitted inside a plastic outer housing which attaches to a wheelchair wheel. Different housings can be used for different wheels, making the Hand Drive compatible with a variety of wheelchairs.

Because they used 3D printed parts in much of their design, the Hand Drive only costs $40 to make and assemble. The only parts that can’t be printed are the ratchets, but the team hopes to address this shortcoming in future versions of the product.

“In the big picture, one of our goals is to work towards a design where the planetary ratchets can be 3D printed instead of milled,” writes Reed, “We never want to lose sight of our goal to make the Hand Drive affordable and accessible for all.”

They also made their designs open source, enabling others to build a custom version to suit their needs and even improve upon the idea if so inspired.

Editors' Recommendations

You won’t be taking Microsoft’s HoloLens 3 into the metaverse
Microsoft HoloLens 2

As rival Apple is rumored to be eyeing an entrance into the metaverse, Microsoft, an early proponent of mixed and augmented reality applications, is criticized for its blurry vision behind the company's own HoloLens strategy. While HoloLens notched big early wins, including scoring a U.S. Department of Defense contract, subsequent delays, project cancellations, and high-profile executive departures may have resulted in the death of the HoloLens 3. Still, despite a scathing profile by Business Insider, it appears that Microsoft remains, at least publicly, committed to its HoloLens endeavors for now. The company has gone on record to refute the publication's reporting that HoloLens 3 has been killed.

There are a number of factors that may be causing Microsoft to pivot from its early bet on HoloLens, but the Microsoft profile cited internal divisions and the lack of a unified strategy among the top reasons for concern. As a result of the chaos, it appears that the largest collateral damage to Microsoft's infighting is the cancellation of its next-generation HoloLens 3 hardware.

Read more
Windows 11 may get the 3D emojis we were promised
Clippy returns to Windows 11 as an emoji.

Microsoft shipped new emojis in Windows 11 last year, but they caused quite some controversy as the emojis weren't actually 3D as the company first teased. There was never an explanation for that change in design, but it is now looking as though the originally promised 3D emoji could still be in the works.

Though Microsoft itself hasn't recently said anything about 3D emoji on its official channels, one of its employees sent indications about it. In a response to a tweet from a Windows 11 user lamenting the lack of 3D emoji, Nando Costa, who is the visual artist and design leader at Microsoft Design, said: "Thank you and agreed! We're working on that."

Read more
AMD’s 3D-stacked Ryzen 7 5800X3D is ‘world’s fastest gaming processor’
AMD CEO presenting new CPU.

The first processor to use a 3D V-Cache technology was announced at the big AMD CES 2022 keynote. The tech was first announced at Computex 2021, and fans have been eagerly awaiting a processor that will put it to use.

That processor is the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which seems like a strange place to start a new range of processors. AMD has its Ryzen 9 chips, after all. That's because the new Ryzen 7 can outclass AMD's Ryzen 9 5900X while gaming, despite using the same architecture.

Read more