Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
#2As mentioned in one on the comments on the article, a patent for something very similar was filed with 1988 priority in the US: https://www.google.com/patents/US5123495
Wonder why it hasn't made to the market in the 27 years since that patent?
Re: Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
#3I wonder how well this would work on carpeted stairs? Since the treads are gripping only the 'nose' of the stair is there the possibility of slippage on the pile? What if the padding gave way or the treads pulled the carpet away from the stair?
How well would this chair recover from scenarios like this? Or in any failure for that matter.
It certainly looks like it has a lot of promise!
Re: Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
#4That video is really melodramatic. It's a guy slowly ascending a staircase with these crazy dynamic shots and music that would be more appropriate for a compilation of airshow maneuvers. That said, it doesn't look technologically like it's all that interesting unless they've managed to make it super-cheap.
Re: Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
#5As mentioned in one on the comments on the article, a patent for something very similar was filed with 1988 priority in the US: https://www.google.com/patents/US5123495 Wonder why it hasn't made to the market in the 27 years since that patent?
Affordable robots 27 years ago were fairly primitive. Even expensive robots were pretty limited compared to what we have today.
Re: Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
#6That video is really melodramatic. It's a guy slowly ascending a staircase with these crazy dynamic shots and music that would be more appropriate for a compilation of airshow maneuvers. That said, it doesn't look technologically like it's all that interesting unless they've managed to make it super-cheap.
If it's at all affordable for people who are confined to wheelchairs, a working stair-climbing wheelchair would be a life-changer for tens or hundreds of millions of people. Airshow maneuvers, by comparison, are pretty, but also pretty unimportant.
Re: Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
#7Was anyone paying attention when the Dean Kamen wheelchair stopped being made? Was it cost/demand, didn't work? The wikipedia article says something about the FDA reclassifying it but that doesn't seem to explain why it stopped being made.
Re: Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
#8The inventor of the Segway first invented a far superior stair-climbing wheelchair, the iBOT, way back in 2003, but it was regulated out of existence.
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/02/11/ibot-discontinued-unfo...
However, the FDA recently reclassified it so it may be put back into production within a couple of years.
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMe...
Re: Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
#9Was anyone paying attention when the Dean Kamen wheelchair stopped being made? Was it cost/demand, didn't work? The wikipedia article says something about the FDA reclassifying it but that doesn't seem to explain why it stopped being made. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBOT
It sounds like the market was too small:
http://forums.segwaychat.org/archive/index.php/t-20984.html
I looked at the iBOT page in the Wayback Machine, it jumps from a sales page to a page with a statement they aren't selling it anymore.
Re: Students in Switzerland build a wheelchair that climbs stairs
#10As mentioned in one on the comments on the article, a patent for something very similar was filed with 1988 priority in the US: https://www.google.com/patents/US5123495 Wonder why it hasn't made to the market in the 27 years since that patent?
I live in Australia, here stair climbing wheelchairs are obviated by wheelchair ramps in to every public use building and commercial building. Wheelchair bound people are also given subsidies to have ramps installed at their homes too.
Additionally, I'd hazard a guess that price effects consumer uptake. If the the stair climbing feature costs, probably at least(?), $5,000 to $10,000 dollars extra fewer people are likely interest.
edit: a word and a space