Amos Winter Receives Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Award
Oftentimes the simplest solution is the best – and the most impressive. And it would appear that the judges of Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards agree. This year, they recognized the invention of a wheelchair that utilizes a simple lever to overcome uneven or uphill terrain by naming Assistant Professor Amos Winter and his collaborator Continuum, a Boston-based product design consultancy, a recipient of their Innovation by Design Awards, noting that part of its ingenuity comes from its low-tech simplicity.
Winter’s Leveraged Freedom Chair takes advantage of simple physics and geometric principles to create a variable mechanical advantage drivetrain that is controlled by the rider’s upper body strength and hand placement. The rider effectively changes gears by grasping near the end of the lever to increase torque output or by gripping near the pivot to increase speed. Riders can remove and store the levers when they’re maneuvering indoors. Built with bike parts, the low-cost wheelchair is easy and inexpensive to repair anywhere.
Read Fast Company’s announcement here: http://bit.ly/RGbYM9. Read more about the Leveraged Freedom Chair at http://bit.ly/QC0ozC.
