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Home heathcare nurses must work with patients in the personal bed. These beds are low, risking back injury for the nurse due to the bending required. The BREAK team designed and built expanding "box springs" that raising the bed for ergonomic nursing care.
The team had freedom to design an Art Tool activated by ONE BUTTON that would give the user control and creativity. This team chose to create a Spin Art machine with rotating palette and oscillating draw/paint tool. The user controls when the tool touches the canvas.
The team had freedom to design an Art Tool activated by ONE BUTTON to give the user control and creativity. They created a Plinko machine (see also User Manual) with paint-covered marbles creating random traces. The user controls when marbles are released.
After two teams struggled with sensors and code to get a reliable system, this team stepped back and did a lot of accuracy testing. They produced a single set of paired sensors that reliably detected both a far and near drop-off and turned on warning lights.
At age two, Amira could not walk or crawl. With the KU BREAK mini power wheelchair, and she immediately became mobile. See the Toddler Powerchair User's Manual or get a parts list, modification instructions, and files for 3D printing to complete your own conversion.
A BREAK team designed, and installed a remote controlled cattle watering system for a rancher who uses a wheelchair. He can now independently water cattle in the winter. Kansas AgrAbility and Assistive Technology for Kansans helped make connections.
A man with limited vision enjoys painting, but would get paint on his hands finding the desired color. The team created a paint dispensing and tray system with tactile feedback and audio prompts so he can more easily paint (see manuals for the tray, MP3 player, and speaker).
This team attempted to refine and build upon the first prototype system, but found the sensors and code inaccurate. The team tested and troubleshooted both the sensors and code to get the warning system back into working order.
Here is a brief summary of 2019-2020 projects and calendar-year 2020 projects. They included the first attempt for a system to detect drop-off near a wheelchair and provide warning, basic wheelchair adaptations, and the first attempt to design in-home bed lift system.
David Hosch was injured and become a wheelchair user. He found a love for kayaking, but needed assistance launching and loading his kayak. KU engineering students gave him the independence and freedom to kayak whenever he wants to go.
Those with walkers, scooters, and wheelchairs have difficulty in the kitchen, because the counters are high and they can't sit facing the counter. A slide-out cutting board, that replaced a drawer, provided a convenient work surface to make preparing food easier.
A second round of work on features to make transfers easier/safer for patient and caregiver. The adapations attempted include changing seat height, stowable foot rests, and a transfer board holder. The transfer board holder was most reliable and useful.
To improving the ergonomics, speed and efficiency of small parts packaging tasks, a BREAK team design new workstations with adjustable eight work srufaces, gravity fed dispensers and sorting trays with a shoot to aid in bagging the parts easily.
The need was an easily transportable lift system for lifting adults with disabilities from the floor to standing. The solution approach was an inflatable with wedge-shaped sections that would sequentially inflate. Lack of lateral stability was an unsolved problem.
A teanager with paraplegia used a manual wheelchair and desired to help with the family dairy farm. Through a number of relatively simple dairy barn modifications and wheelchair modifications, access to working in the dairy was achieved.
An avid piano player, despite her congenital amputations, Heidi Burke could not use the damper pedal until volunteer KU engineers created a device that solved her problem.See the video, links to news coverage and prominent retweets!
A beloved and fun community icon is now wheelchair accessible. The new wheelchair accessible train car for the Spirit of Wamego means that ALL children and their families can enjoy a free ride on the city train. Also, watch the video
The goal was to design a semi-automated system to stuff gloves and syringe parts into a plastic cup, to improve productivity of piece-rate workers at JCDS. Multiple teams attempted the project (read reports 2015-2016, 2017, 2018), but none were successful.
Assists people with limited use of one hand to perform bagging tasks. Magnetic clips can be easily adjusted an hold the bag open. View the accepted abstract for the 2013 Summer Bioengineering Conference and look at the poster presented at the conference.
An electro-mechanical system with eyetracking and view compensation
A floor vacuum for a power wheelchair
for employment opportunities (Tri-Valley)
Allows a quadreplegic to manually move
wheelchair for outdoor exercise
Redesigned workstation to reduce
overhead lifting (Cottonwood Industries)
Student with Athetoid Cerebral Palsy
given eye-gaze computer control
Large-scale open/accessible repository for voice samples of dysphonic people
Free standing, collapsable, and portable. Included footrest and reaction bar to increase throwing power. Easter Seals Capper Foundation kids loved it!
Thick bungees were added to an orthotic like this to help store the energy of at heal strike and assist with toe-off during walking.
The add-on to the safety harness structure allows the PT to move the leg by pulling cords, instead of bending to manually lift and position the leg.
Students designed and built this add-on for a standard pedal surrey that allows the trailer be be attached to a 2-6 person surrey. Wheelchair users can ride along!