Michigan Technological University students are no strangers to interesting research projects, but one design project for senior engineering students went beyond interesting to life-changing this year.
It started when
General Motors, a longtime partner of the university, was asked to improve the design for the handcycles the company has donated to wounded veterans participating in marathon-style races. The three-wheel, hand-driven bike-type wheelchairs had design issues like instability or not enough ruggedness to handle competitive racing.
General Motors has often commissioned senior design students at Tech to come up with new designs for special projects, and GM's VP for global quality and vehicle launch, Terry Woychowski, says the handcycle issue was a perfect one to present to the engineering students.
So GM sponsored four senior design teams under the supervision of Robert DeJonge, a research engineer and instructor who coordinates the senior capstone design projects for Tech's department of mechanical engineering and engineering mechanics. The teams worked with veterans from the
Achilles International Freedom Team to design a better racing handcycle, starting in January.
Now that the spring semester is over, one team was chosen as the winner, having provided the best design and focused the best on concerns brought up by the athletes.
"You can come up with a brilliant design, but if the customer doesn't like it, it doesn't matter," Woychowski says. "It was tough for the students this year; they had to talk with the guys about their injuries and their issues: keeping their stump in position, or getting spasms, or needing the right kind of safeguards so their limbs would be secure."
The next steps are to organize a fifth team for the fall semester to carry the idea through to a prototype, which would then be presented during an Army-Navy fame on December 8, and ready for use in time for a Freedom Team member to ride in a Detroit marathon in the fall of 2013.
"Beyond the marathon, many scenarios are possible, but I'm hoping for continued development and possible small-scale production of the improved machine in some form," says DeJonge.
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: Robert DeJonge, Michigan Technological University
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