Adaptive Golf Grip and Harness

Overview

A paralyzed individual can enjoy the game of golf due to the development of adaptive golf chairs and grips for the clubs. The development of an upper-body harness will allow for flexibility and momentum while providing support and increasing overall comfort and safety. Additionally, a strong grip device for holding the club would allow an individual’s hands that often are low in muscle tone to have more control. With the work of the Adaptive Golf Harness and Grip, tetraplegics can play a more advanced and enjoyable round of golf.

Objectives

• Develop an upper body harness to allow flexibility, stability, and comfort during the golf swing.
• Develop a grip device to allow for low-strength hands to control the club more effectively.

Approach

• Met with Michelle Maslanka, a tetraplegic who is an active golfer
• Determined and ranked customer needs based on research and discussions with Michelle
• Created specifications for the solution that covered each need
• Utilized brainstorming methods such as “yes…and” to create ideas for the harness and grip
• Selected concepts based on Pugh chart, using weighted specifications as criteria
• Focused on having two independent sub-systems, the grip and the harness, instead of one fully integrated design

Glove
• The Glove utilized a cotton glove, stainless steel wire rope, and 3D printed ratcheting system.
• The wire rope looped around the palm of the glove and was inserted into the 3D print.
• The 3D print was capable of tightening and untightening the wire around the glove and golf club in hand. This created a better grip on the golf club than the current market product.
• Researched different material gloves that provided higher strength, deciding upon a DeWalt leather welding glove
• Researched different lacing patterns to allow for more points of contact between the wire and club, deciding upon a shoelace-inspired design
• Created a CAD model based on the Boa for mounting purposes
• Altered the leather gloves so that the steel rope wire could be threaded through it, creating a shoe-lace pattern
• Provided flexibility and comfort by cutting off the fingers of the glove
• Mounted the Boa suing a 3D printed version of the Boa mount

Harness
• For the Harness, we utilized polyester straps, squeeze-release buckles, and hook and loop velcro.
• These materials were sewn together with a single line stitch.
• The team created a MatLab code that validated
• The user first inserted their arms through the harness. The harness was then wrapped around the back of the chair and the person’s waist. This secured the user to the wheelchair in place.
• Researched different breaking strength webbing
• Researched different strength sewing stitches
• Added padding to shoulder straps to ensure comfortability
• Altered back of the chair attachment
• Removed back harness adjustable buckles for comfortability and simplicity
• Added push-button buckles to allow more ease of use for a paralyzed user

Outcomes

• Development of both devices has come in well under budget, taking up less than half of the total $1250 budget
• The assembly time of both products is low, with both taking under one minute each to assemble
• Developed a system that works for both right- and left-handed golfers
• Using both products shows promise in increasing the effectiveness of golf swings in users