I was a research Associate at The Royal College of Art, with CoBiRD, who provided medical expertise and Ian Harris. CoBiRD came to us with a very simple and brilliant idea: a folding scooter with a seat as a mobility aid for amputees. A lightweight, low-cost, assistive device that is potentially adaptable to a wide range of current wheelchair users.

Design challenges:

As well as meeting the challenge of designing assistive technology, we also needed to understand and meet the constraints of design for Malawi and for UK, with low and high-tech manufacturing and off-road and urban models.

The aluminium plates on the prototype allowed us to adjust the wheelbase and handling of the scooter and the folding stunt peg was one of a range of interchangeable touchpoints for different users.

My contribution to the project was:

• The majority of the design, development and engineering.
• Human-Centred-Design research and user testing with amputees.
• Designed and made 5 different iterations of the prototypes and arranged production of 3 final prototypes for user testing.

It was an amazing learning opportunity, sadly, the project was shelved soon after I stopped working on it. This project has amazing potential and deserves to be restarted.

The project led to 2 Academic Papers, including: McCahill J, Stebbins J, Bates J, Batchelor A, Church J, Lavy C. The African Disability Scooter: preliminary analysis of a new mobility aid. Disability Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology. 2009 Sep; 4(5):353-6.

The second prototype allowed us to rapidly understand and optimise the frame geometry and handling.

SolidWorks 2004 Renders