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Imagine That! Student engineers aim to simulate high risk adventure for persons in wheelchairs

Published: November 05, 2021

Two minutes into your ride, the speedboat accelerates. The shoreline scenery blurs. The boat picks up more speed and then swings sharply around. You gasp. It circles back on its wakeone bounce, two bounces, three. Water sprays. You feel the rush.

Some call the ride thrilling; some call it breathtaking. Five seniors at Greenville University hope to call it a simulation success for adventurers confined to wheelchairs. Their planned design will integrate various technologies to achieve the sense of action.

Imagine That! Student engineers aim to simulate high risk adventure for persons in wheelchairs

Recreating the exhilaration of high risk sports

The teamthree engineering students and two business studentshave embarked on an ambitious yearlong project to help individuals with limited mobility experience the exhilaration of high-risk activities.

Completing a customer needs analysis this fall put them one step closer to designing and building the prototype of a motion platform that holds a wheelchair and works in concert with a virtual reality head-tracking system and video. The students want to achieve simulations that immerse users in experiences like snowboarding, jet-skiing, or, for the mildly adventuresome, a relaxing river cruise.

The teams design and research specialist, Luke Hopkins, describes virtual reality as a user-friendly tool for recreating all kinds of experiences. Pilots, surgeons, and even mechanics use virtual reality to train. With [just] a video, you can look away, says Hopkins, but with virtual reality, youre immersed. We want to bring that immersion to this experience.

The teams project manager and data analyst Juan Garcia calls the Imagination Station a unique opportunity to serve persons with limited mobility and at the same time fill a void in the market.

Inspiration for the project

The idea for the Imagination Station flowed from conversations with Greenville resident Scott Darnell, an award-winning developer of products for persons with physical challenges. Darnell sustained a spinal injury in a diving accident 30 years ago. He has since dedicated his efforts to creating mobility options for folks like him, in wheelchairs.

His designs include a pontoon boat that fits on an 8x20 trailer, but flexes out in the water to provide a stable platform that accommodates one or more wheelchairs. His award-winning wheelchair lift fits either the drivers side or passengers side of a truck, or both sides simultaneously. Should the owner decide to sell the truck, the lift can easily be removed and replaced with original factory seats.

Darnells passion for innovation fuels unbounded creativity. One idea leads to another and then another. Drawings for 80 mobility-related innovations reside on his computer. He welcomes a team of up-and-coming engineers and marketers to take the innovations to the next level.

The idea man and student engineers, a potentially profitable match

While Darnell also works with a team of engineering students at another university on a different project, its the launch of a new engineering program here in Greenville that particularly excites him. His proximity to campus, coupled with his experience, expertise, and his drive to improve durable medical equipment make him a ready and willing resource.

When students presented plans for the Imagination Station to members of GUs Engineering Advisory Board this fall, Darnell was glad to attend and engage in the dialogue. The students detailed project schedule includes monthly meetings with him. They name him a main stakeholder in the project.

Imagine That! Student engineers aim to simulate high risk adventure for persons in wheelchairs

Scott Darnell (front row, far right), and the Imagination Station team: Back row, l to r: EJ Batchelder, manufacturing systems engineer; Luke Hopkins, design & research specialist; JC Jaimes, financial analysis and customer communications; (middle row, left to right) Juan Garcia, project manager and data analyst; Claudia Principal, customer and marketing analysis.

Beyond imagination

Its no surprise that Darnells rapid creative thinking extends beyond devices and drawings. The idea of local engineering students giving life to designs leads to the idea of local manufacturers turning prototypes into products.

Ive got a long list of things that we could create right here, and Greenvilles ripe for manufacturing, he says. It would be great to give back to my hometown.

In the meantime, Luke, Juan, and their Imagination Station teammates have their noses to the grindstone translating what theyve learned about user experiences into measurements and equations. They must puzzle out the needed strength for a wheelchair ramp that transports users to the platform. They must calculate the degrees of motion theyll build into that platform and synch that motion to within one millisecond of an accompanying video.

While none of the students has calculated the inspiration it will take to sustain their work over a year, its likely a generous helping will come via frequent conversations with Darnellthe man colleagues describe as relentless in his pursuit of truly-needed solutions.

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