2. Inquiry Questions?
What is a wheelchair?
Who uses wheelchairs?
Is a wheelchair a machine?
When were wheelchairs invented and by whom?
Which came first the bike or the wheelchair?
Are there different kinds of wheelchairs?
What are wheelchairs used for other than transport?
What is the latest in wheelchair innovation?
3. Definition of a wheelchair
A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, designed to be a
replacement for walking. The device comes in
variations where it is propelled by motors or by the
seated occupant turning the rear wheels by hand.
Often there are handles behind the seat for someone
else to do the pushing. Wheelchairs are used by people
for whom walking is difficult or impossible due to
illness, injury, or disability.
4. Who uses wheelchairs?
Elderly people who have weakened muscles or injuries.
People who are born with disabilities.
Adults and children who are dealing with injuries or
illnesses.
6. What kind of machine are
wheelchairs?
Most wheelchairs are complex machines that involve
several simple machines.
It involves a wheel and an axel, screws, levers, and
sometimes pulleys.
Simple machines are useful because they can make a
physical job easier by changing the magnitude or the
direction of the force exerted to do work.
The wheelchair uses several simple machines to make
the job of moving a persons body easier.
7. When were the first parts of a
wheelchair invented?
The chair- originally built by ancient Egyptians. It was
only used for the elite.
The wheel- was invented near 4000 B.C.
The original wheeled vehicles looked like carts and
were pulled by animals.
9. Three centuries later in China; the Chinese used their
invented wheelbarrow to move people as well as heavy
objects.
A distinction between the two functions was not made for
another several hundred years, around 525 C.E. when
images of wheeled chairs made specifically to carry people
begin to occur in Chinese art.[
When did wheeled seats begin being used
for transporting the disabled?
11. The “Bath” Chair
Developed in Bath, England.
Invented by John Dawson in 1783
It had 2 large rear
wheels and one small
front wheel.
12. The Bicycle
1790, de Sirvac introduced the “swiftwalker”, a wooden
bicycle propelled by the user by pushing feet to the
ground.
In 1865 cranks and pedals
were added and it was
re-named the “boneshaker”
Like the wheelchair, the bike
is also propelled by user.
13. First Portable Wheelchairs
Harry Jennings and his disabled friend Herbert
Everest, both mechanical engineers, invented the first
lightweight, steel, collapsible wheelchair in 1933.
The two saw the business
potential of the invention and
went on to become the first
mass-manufacturers of
wheelchairs: Everest
and Jennings. Their "x-brace“
design is still in common use.
14. Power Chairs
An electric-powered wheelchair is a wheelchair that is
moved via the means of an
electric motor and
navigational controls,
usually a small joystick
mounted on the armrest,
rather than manual power.
15. Wheelchair Sports
Were originally introduced as a form of therapy in a
Rehab hospital in England.
16. All Terrain Wheelchairs
All-terrain wheelchairs allow users
to enter the water and provide a better
mobility on beach sand and on uneven
terrain, and even snow. The common adaptation among the
different designs is that they have extra-wide wheels or tires, to
increase stability on uneven or unsteady terrain. The wide tires
on snow wheelchairs, for example, spread the
weight of the chair user and the chair over a
wider surface, similar to how snowshoes
perform the same purpose for someone on
foot, allowing the person to travel on top
of the snow rather than sinking.
17. Latest invention: Smart Chairs
A smart wheelchair is any motorized platform with a
chair designed to assist a user with a physical disability
where an artificial control system replaces user
control.
Its purpose is to reduce or eliminate the user's task of
driving a motorized wheelchair. Usually, a smart
wheelchair is controlled by a computer, has a suite of
sensors and applies techniques in mobile robotics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYIq59yGGwc
