🏆 Best Poster 1st Place
A device that assists people with disabilities to safely and efficiently get into a floating canoe.
Sponsored by: Waypoint Adventure
Team Members
Cole Miller Daniel Defibaugh Lauren Wagner Claire Nichols
Instructor: Jessica Menold
Project Poster
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Project Video
Project Summary
Overview
Waypoint Adventure is a company that specializes in getting people with disabilities on outdoor adventures that otherwise would not be possible. One of these adventures is canoeing. The current solution to getting the user into the canoe consists of entering the canoe on land and dragging into the water. This process can be unstable for the user and can damage the canoe. Our goal was to create a device that stabilizes the canoe in shallow water and helps the user to safely get in.
Objectives
The objective of this project was to create a product that assists the user into a canoe. The product was to include the following features:
– Stabilize the canoe while entering.
– Function in shallow water with varying water depths and terrains.
– Adjustable to varying sizes of canoes.
– Waterproof and corrosion resistant materials.
– Able to store in the canoe to be used at multiple locations on an adventure.
Approach
Along with the expectations from Waypoint Adventure, our team conducted various surveys and interviews with our target user to better understand their struggles when trying to enter a canoe. Once we identified a set of customer needs, we moved on to brainstorming designs that would best address these needs. We compared these designs using various weighting metrics and found that the design that resembled a transfer bench would be best to move forward with.
Our team then began working on the prototyping of the transfer bench design. This process started with cardboard where we laid out all of the different pieces to see how it would come together. The team then moved on to scrap wood to see if the design would function as we intended. The next phase of our prototype consisted of PVC pipes and acrylic. After testing we found that the acrylic was too brittle and snapped under the weight of a person. We also found that the PVC pipes did not keep the canoe as stable as we would like. The final stage of the prototype consisted of a more flexible plastic which we reinforced with aluminum and used stainless steel as the supports for the seat.
Outcomes
The final product functions as our team intended it to as it assists the user, stabilizes the canoe, and is able to fully store inside the canoe. Our material selection will allow it to be used for many seasons and will enable Waypoint Adventure to expand their canoe trip to a broader audience.