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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Early Morning Open Thread: Cool Tech

Early Morning Open Thread: Cool Tech

by Anne Laurie|  March 9, 20102:06 am| 31 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Science & Technology

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Great article on low-cost, high-value technology from the Boston Globe:

Some students go to MIT to plumb the mysteries of the atom, or of outer space, or to press the limits of computer science. Amos Winter went another way: He’s trying to revolutionize the wheelchair. Specifically, he wants to make that most familiar aid to the disabled work in the Third World, where roads are bad, money tight, and the need immense.
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A doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering, Winter calls his invention the Leveraged Freedom Chair – leveraged because it is powered by hand levers.
__
Abdullah Munish has another name for it. “I call it my little angel machine,’’ he said.
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For years after he survived a car crash but lost the use of his legs, Munish struggled to move his wheelchair along the rutted, hilly roads of his hometown in Tanzania. Frustrated, he often just stayed indoors, and lost touch with friends and relatives.
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Now, with the help of Winter’s invention, he has reclaimed his freedom and sense of connection. He can push himself up the hill to a neighborhood playing field where he can once again toss a ball around with friends. He can scoot along the gravel paths of Moshi to visit people again. “We believers, we know that anything that changes your life in terms of mobility, that is something that comes from heaven,’’ said Munish. A 31-year-old wheelchair technician, he is one of six wheelchair users in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda who have been testing the prototype since August.
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The genius of Winter’s wheelchair lies in the design of the long ratchet-like levers that power it. Hold them low, near the axle, and it goes fast. Hold them higher up, and it generates a lot of torque, making it possible to climb slowly but surely over rocks and up hills. In effect, you change gears by changing your body geometry.
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That helps keep the wheelchair simple and inexpensive, and may make it affordable to some of the 20 million people who need wheelchairs in the developing world…

Click through the link, and there’s a short video and an interactive graphic along with the rest of the story — exactly the sort of value-added content that the internet was supposed to enable, but all too rarely does.

And, frankly, I suspect there are plenty of people here in The Greatest Country in the World whose lives would be improved by a Leveraged Freedom Chair.

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31Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    March 9, 2010 at 2:11 am

    I went to college with a guy named Chet. When he was a senoir in high school, the car he was in was hit by a train and he was paralyzed from the chest down. He’s only technically a quadriplegic because he doesn’t have full control of his thumbs. I can imagine he’d be zooming along in a chair like that and loving every minute.

  2. 2.

    Joseph Nobles

    March 9, 2010 at 2:12 am

    But I can’t hit Medicare for $5,000 or more a pop with a Leveraged Freedom Chair! This kid just doesn’t understand America.

  3. 3.

    asiangrrlMN

    March 9, 2010 at 2:20 am

    Great story. Inspiring, even. Yeah, we could use a little of that here. It would be even better if it was called the Freedom Fries Chair! Or not.

    OT, for those who watched the Oscars, Farrah Fawcett was left out of the tribute because she mostly contributed to TV (they only include 30 people). And yet, MJ was included.

  4. 4.

    Brachiator

    March 9, 2010 at 2:20 am

    Very cool story.

    OT, for those who watched the Oscars, Farrah Fawcett was left out of the tribute because she mostly contributed to TV (they only include 30 people). And yet, MJ was included.

    What a lame excuse.

  5. 5.

    Linkmeister

    March 9, 2010 at 2:35 am

    As someone who occasionally has to push someone around in a conventional wheelchair, I’m all in favor of improving the things.

  6. 6.

    freelancer

    March 9, 2010 at 2:51 am

    “We believers, we know that anything that changes your life in terms of mobility, that is something that comes from heaven,’’ said Munish. A 31-year-old wheelchair technician, he is one of six wheelchair users in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda who have been testing the prototype since August.

    Munish would possibly be shocked to learn that this, and many, many other advancements in technology have come, not from heaven, but from smart folks, many agnostic, even more secular, and even some atheists, that seeks such advances not because they feel a divine calling, but because they believe their lives are enhanced and enriched, by advancing and enriching the lives of others.

    Those who share our time on this planet may benefit from what we can accomplish, and in the mind of so many, it becomes a great crime to not pursue such ends when we know that others would suffer otherwise.

    Brilliant story.

  7. 7.

    The Golux

    March 9, 2010 at 2:51 am

    My mother spent the last 25 years of her life more or less confined to a wheelchair (multiple sclerosis), and while this might not have helped her later on (she wouldn’t have been able to use her torso for leverage very much), anything that improves the lives of people who have ambulatory limitations is a great thing.

    Not everyone can afford an iBOT.

  8. 8.

    freelancer

    March 9, 2010 at 2:51 am

    “We believers, we know that anything that changes your life in terms of mobility, that is something that comes from heaven,’’ said Munish. A 31-year-old wheelchair technician, he is one of six wheelchair users in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda who have been testing the prototype since August.

    Munish would possibly be shocked to learn that this, and many, many other advancements in technology have come, not from heaven, but from smart folks, many agnostic, even more secular, and even some atheists, that seeks such advances not because they feel a divine calling, but because they believe their lives are enhanced and enriched, by advancing and enriching the lives of others.

    Those who share our time on this planet may benefit from what we can accomplish, and in the mind of so many, it becomes a great crime to not pursue such ends when we know that others would suffer otherwise.

    Brilliant story.

  9. 9.

    16 shells from a thirty aught six

    March 9, 2010 at 3:13 am

    That made my day.

  10. 10.

    JGabriel

    March 9, 2010 at 3:19 am

    Wow. That is a great story. Thanks, Anne Laurie.

    .

  11. 11.

    bago

    March 9, 2010 at 3:36 am

    Dude should apply for a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. This is right up their alley.

  12. 12.

    Restrung

    March 9, 2010 at 3:39 am

    Thanks, Anne Laurie.

  13. 13.

    asiangrrlMN

    March 9, 2010 at 4:19 am

    @Brachiator: Yeah, that’s what I thought. I mean, if they said, “Dude, MJ’s death was a media blitz, and we wanted us a piece of that”, I would have accepted that explanation. I wouldn’t have liked it, mind you, but that at least makes sense.

  14. 14.

    mai naem

    March 9, 2010 at 5:26 am

    @Joseph Nobles: No, not $5 grand. Try $20 grand for an electric wheelchair for a quadriplegic. And that’s a regular one. A super duper deluxe is more like $30 grand. $5 grand is for those scooters for old folks who don’t need the back and side supports. I have a friend whose relatively minor repairs to his wheelchair were $7 grand. If the Obama people want to save money in healthcare they need to look at durable medical equipment. Total complete rip off.

  15. 15.

    WereBear

    March 9, 2010 at 6:15 am

    Thanks, Anne Laurie. This was a great start to the day.

    If anyone could take a moment to send some good Mobility Mojo my way… we are on week four of Having No Car, and I don’t think this pilot is going to sell.

    I can get to work on the bus, but the hours are weird. However, my mechanic has found something in our price range that is actually drivable, so this week we should know if this possibility can get on the road.

    I love public transport, I do, but I’m in a rural area and the bus doesn’t work all that well for shopping; I can get there, but need a friend to get back. However, the bus does have a wheelchair lift, and that’s how this whole comment gets tied together.

    I remember when buses, didn’t.

  16. 16.

    RedKitten

    March 9, 2010 at 6:36 am

    They think the wheelchair will cost $200 once they can mass-produce them. That’s just phenomenal. And I agree that he should definitely hit up Bill and Melinda Gates — this invention could transform a lot of lives.

  17. 17.

    salacious crumb

    March 9, 2010 at 6:41 am

    it wont be long before Winter will be accused of stealing the word Freedom from patriotic TeaBaggers and all the right wing douches out there.

  18. 18.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    March 9, 2010 at 6:43 am

    David Brooks does just amuse me no end:

    We all have our emotional hot and cold spots. If you asked me about the New York Mets, you’d see a glow in my eyes. If you asked me about banking reform, words might come out of my mouth, but you’d notice me nodding off midsentence.

    If you asked me about cultural trends you’d notice a string of words emerging, but also perhaps drooling, as I mumbled something about salad bars and then fell asleep, but not before the words appeared magically in the pages of the New York Times.

    We live in an age. We didn’t always. All ages are not equal: though the past may be less urgent than the present, it’s farther away. The only certainty is that there is a great, mindless, incomprehensibly incoherent right wing talking point that this can lead to, eventually, as the moral to the story. It’s not easy, only the very fortunate achieve an understanding in the end. Anyone who can find truth, or certainty, or anything really in what I have written above should consider yourself very lucky indeed. Good night now.

  19. 19.

    chopper

    March 9, 2010 at 8:13 am

    see, this sorta stuff is why i love being an engineer. we come up with shit like this.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 9, 2010 at 8:20 am

    When I saw the word “leveraged,” I assumed it meant debt-financed. This is a much better idea.

  21. 21.

    Robin G.

    March 9, 2010 at 8:52 am

    This story really got my day off to a good start. Thanks :)

  22. 22.

    gnomedad

    March 9, 2010 at 8:58 am

    In a similar vein, I love this talk by MIT’s Amy Smith at TED. She’s a mechanical engineer who creates simple devices that allow people in developing countries to use safer and less environmentally destructive cooking fuels.

  23. 23.

    jron

    March 9, 2010 at 9:00 am

    @WereBear: not only that but quite a lot of them are ‘kneeling’ buses nowadays.

    I love the fact that low-rider technology developed to make guys look cool cruising, but still able to get out of a steep driveway without scratching up their car, is now being used to make city buses accessible.

  24. 24.

    WereBear

    March 9, 2010 at 9:03 am

    @jron: Yes, I’ve seen those, but it’s waaaay beyond our budget in this area.

    However, it’s great the buses exist, and I talk them up quite a bit. If the schedule worked better for my office, I would take the bus just to support them, but I have to leave almost two hours early (and get there early too) and while I don’t mind, part of my job is helping people with their computers, and I can’t do that if I’m not there.

  25. 25.

    Ming

    March 9, 2010 at 9:09 am

    That was wonderful, Anne Laurie — thanks.

  26. 26.

    Ming

    March 9, 2010 at 9:12 am

    @gnomedad: yeah, that was great too. there’s another TED on a relatively cheap, portable device for making clean drinking water. i love that kind of technology.

  27. 27.

    Barry

    March 9, 2010 at 9:45 am

    Thanks for posting that story, Anne! It’s always nice to get a ray of sunshine.

  28. 28.

    Steeplejack

    March 9, 2010 at 9:58 am

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Farrah Fawcett was left out of the tribute because she mostly contributed to TV (they only include 30 people).

    Lame on both counts. They omitted Farrah but included some P.R. weasel whose name I don’t even remember–and Army Archerd, whose connection to actual filmmaking was at least as tangential irrelevant. And I don’t like the 30-person quota. Speed up the montage or let it run longer–or omit the P.R. weasels and minor studio execs they have been including. The Steep rule: keep it to actors, writers, directors, cinematographers, major producers and notable others–an Edith Head, say, but not some guy who just happened to work in the industry for 30 years.

  29. 29.

    Fwiffo

    March 9, 2010 at 10:15 am

    The mechanics of the thing are so simple, obvious, low-tech and intuitive that it’s astonishing that nobody’s come up with it sooner. I’m just gob-smacked at how simple it is. I expected something the equivalent of gears on a bike, but this is simpler, cheaper, more robust and lower maintenance.

  30. 30.

    Bad Horse's Filly

    March 9, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    I bookmarked this entry and had to wait all day to get back to it to watch the video. Amazing stuff. Thanks for sharing it with us.

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  1. Another in a series of why I love the web « A Man With A Ph.D. says:
    March 9, 2010 at 10:35 am

    […] in a series of why I love the web March 9, 2010 — Richard Gayle Early Morning Open Thread: Cool Tech [Via Balloon […]

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