Simple Seat, Better Lives

Hey All, I wanted to share our infographic with you! This infographic helps visually explain the problem that we are trying to solve.

Here is a cool update: Check out the inspiration behind the idea, Margaret Orech being honored by the EU for being a Defender of Human Rights. Recognize those other team members?? :)

Hello!

Its been a while since we have been able to share any updates. But we have some very exciting ones! Since the last time we posted, we have had THREE amazing research and implementation trips to Uganda with a couple different student-led Senior Design Teams. 

During these trips, we have introduced four new designs. During the first trip, we introduced the box-design, which has been a user favorite because of its ease of transportability and setup for use. This was one of our original designs, and we were able to collect more information about how to make it even more easily manufacturable. Another design that we introduced was the tripod design, which is the most cost-effective design. This one is very sturdy while only using minimal material, and is very light-weight. User feedback indicated that it would be a good fit for someone who is in good physical shape and could squat down low. 

From our original trip (see earlier posts) we had a walker design that was very well received by users. Their feedback was that a walker made of wood was pretty heavy, and it would help out a lot if there were wheels. Also, wood is sometimes hard to clean, and buying paint to cover the whole surface of the walker was expensive. So, our wonderful students in the second year of the senior design teams came up with a design made out of PVC (on Uganda, the material is called PPR). They also came up with a way to use old bike wheels for the walker. We were able to build six of these walkers in Lira at local vocational schools while we were in Uganda for two weeks! Attached are some photos.

The third trip we again iterated on the walker design. This time, we made it a bit fancier, using metal instead of PPR. This made the device lighter and more structurally sound. It also made it cheaper to manufacture! All really great improvements, and we received some awesome feedback from users as well.

Our partners in Uganda are continuing to build the seats and distribute them to landmine survivors. We are excited that one of our partners there, Lawrence Odoc, is about to finish his college degree and be able to work with us full time in producing the seats. 

Hey All! Here is a picture of our newest prototype. It is a third iteration of our crutch-attachment idea. The seat simply folds down from the crutch, making it easy to use with limited physical capabilities.

Hello again!

We've been busy building and working, but we had the chance to take a break from the lab this weekend to present our work at IEEE's Global Humanitarian Technology Conference in Seattle! It has been awesome hearing about all the great work that engineers and scientists are doing all over the globe. There are a ton of passionate people out there!!

We were particularly honored to receive IEEE's Humanitarian Engineering Project Award :)

We'll be back soon with some design updates!

-SSBL Team

Our team leader, Mei-Li Hey, met with Chet Cooper, founder of ABILITY Awareness, a non-profit foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with disabilities by focusing in on housing, education, and employment. The Simple Seat, Better Lives team shares this same mission and looks forward to collaboration with ABILITY Corps and ABILITY Magazine in the future to enhance assistive technologies for disabled individuals around the world.

Here is a video from the ABILITY Magazine website that interviews leaders from around the world about strengthening advocacy, policy, and technology for the disabled community. Mohamed BahaaEldin Chaheen from Egypt speaks about how he believes that the issue surrounding those who have been disabled by war are is not getting properly addressed. Let's change this!

Great news!

We have two new students coming from Agago and Oyam districts in Northern Uganda to attend vocational school at Ave Maria. Ave Maria is a private school in Lira, Uganda, that will train these individuals in carpentry and metalworking so that they can successfully produce the Simple Seat. Our contact, Margaret Orech, will be identifying more individuals to begin this training soon. So stay updated!

Here is a photo our team took when we sat in on a sewing class last January:

And our team collaborating with the Director of Ave Maria as we demonstrate our prototypes that we brought with us:

-SSBL

Hello again!

My name is Harry Schmachtemberger and I am the designer of the walker assistive device. We thought it would be useful to combine a mobility assistive device for the physically impaired, a crutch or a walker, with a seat to create a hybrid device. The device could solve two problems at once!

All of this building wore me out a little... I think I'll take a seat for a minute!

Until next time.

-SSBL

One of our team members, Caleb Avery, had the idea for a portable and foldable seat that could collapse into a small space. This idea came to him last spring when unfolding a cardboard box!

We are able to build all of our designs using our university's brand new machine shop. As exciting as some of the machines are, we are only using SIMPLE tools to build our prototypes, because those are the tools available in Uganda.

Here is Mei-Li, our team leader, showing us the third iteration of this design!

Thanks for reading!

-SSBL

Simple Seat team checking in! We heard about the Assistive Devices challenge yesterday, so we took a break from prototyping to introduce our team leader, Mei-Li Hey.

Mei-Li Hey is a West Chicago native who is passionate about humanitarian work that extends beyond borders. Outside of her Mechanical Engineering classes at the University of San Diego, she spends her time organizing house building trips in Tijuana, rock climbing (indoors and outdoors!), and surfing. She traveled to the Dominican Republic in January of 2015 to build fuel-efficient stoves, to combat deforestation and local respiratory issues, and water-filtration systems in the town of El Cercado. In January of 2016, she took the Simple Seat, Better Lives team to Uganda to introduce and receive user feedback from potential users in Lira.

Our next log will have details about our prototypes, stay tuned!!