Beach Bench

Making the Beach Accessible

Project Description

This wheelchair is designed for people with lower body mobility issues to use on the beach. This process started when I saw that children with cerebral palsy are able to be on the beach, but not able to wade into the water. Growing up, being on the beach and soaking in the water was very important to my family and I. Wheelchairs on the market today do not move up and down to allow people to enter the water without leaving their chair. I experimented with different methods of moving the seat up and down, eventually settling on a scissor lift. While making this prototype I 3d modeled, lasercut, and 3d printed using Rhino 6 CAD software. My next steps for this project are implementing a hydraulics system to control the vertical movement.

This project was started in Intro to Engineering taught by Molly Mason at the Wheeler School in spring 2021.

Prototypes

Because this project was started during the Covid-19 pandemic, my early prototyping was done from home

Early scissor lift prototyping

First completed wheelchair prototype

This is where I paused working on this project until February 2022

An axonometric drawing done after revisiting the project

The first trial to test my new scissor lift method

Detailed View

These wheels are designed to handle the sandy terrain of the beach

The scissor lift uses screw posts at its joints and acrylic strips to keep the movement linear

The friction between the acrylic strips and the wheelchair wood keeps the wheelchair at the set level

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