Re-designing a walking aid (Project)

For this project we worked together with a private client, to come up with an idea to improve her son’s walking aid. Our client is a mother of a 4 year old boy who is both mentally and physically disabled and uses a walking aid to move around. The device is quite a bulky and rough piece of metal which is not very flattering for the boy to walk in. The request that we got from our client was thus to come up with a fun system to make the aid look more kid friendly. After some brainstorming with our group and the client we came up with a casing for the device that can be attached and unattached by a click system. We came up with several designs, focused on general interests of toddlers and bright colors. We tried to implement several extra attributes, such as an attachment for an umbrella and for a shopping basket. After this we did material research and decided that the most suitable material would be a somewhat stretchable and breathable fabric that can be printed, combined with cardboard to give specific parts some extra support. The final product that we came up with is a template so anyone at home can fill in the measurements of their own specific walking aid and choose their own design. When sending it to a manufacturer, they can choose their own preferred material, but we personally recommend using a flag-like material as the fabric. The case can be attached to the walking aid by attaching tube clamps to the device with velcro on them.This can be attached to the velcro on the fabric. At the ends of the corners of the bottom tube from the walker there will be elastics, sewn onto the fabric, to make sure it stays put. This way it is easy to switch designs without any difficult or expensive tools. To make our design accessible to anyone we made a website on which you can personalise the template to your preferences and sizes. This way we can share our invention with those who need it. We also included a “User Manual”, see Appendix, explaining how to attach everything. With the goal of making the designs as usable as possible for anyone who needs/wants it.