Booth Id:
ENMC032T
Category:
Engineering Mechanics
Year:
2020
Finalist Names:
Engelman, Anna (School: Ignite Institute)
Wilbers, Abigail (School: Ignite Institute)
Abstract:
The problem we choose was the issue of seniors having a difficult time entering and exiting vehicles. Our goal is to limit the amount of injuries caused by getting in and out of cars. We started off with using the internet to gather some second-hand research. Then we went to our community and sent out two surveys each to a different audience. The surveys helped us prove that our problem was a legitimate issue. Then we went into a nursing home and talked with and interviewed some seniors about our project. After we finished our research, we came up with some solutions to our problem. We came up with three solutions, a sliding seat, an extending handle, and fordable steps. We used a decision matrix to help us choose which solution to use, and the extending handle did the best out of the three. We designed the extending handle to give extra assistance and support when entering and exiting the car. Our next step was to think about how we were going to collect our data. We decided that we will run two tests to show how successful our solution is. The first test will be trying our prototype out with different cars with all different heights and other variables that we think might affect the performance of our product. Our second test will be a test where we have seniors try out our prototype and have them tell us how successful they think our solution is.