Lorna Simpson by Chuck Close.

I met a new friend at the lab open house last Wednesday. Chris was talking up an idea and was introduced to me as someone to discuss the challenge. Chris happens to have a wheel chair is interested in making a ramp design for wheelchairs.

This is an interesting problem. Here is what we have at face value:

Ramp Rise: 6.5″ (perhaps 7″)
Run: 6′
Width: 28″
Load Capacity: 600lb

There is a nice product called LiteRamp. They have a ramp that meets the requirement for 200.00. That’s not bad but Chris wants to try and come up to something that is less expensive and more accessible by a wider community. Chris tell me that lots of venues have a step or lip and do not have a ramp. Many steps are positioned so they can’t have a permanent ramp since it would interfere with the sidewalk and so forth. So a portable ramp might be an answer.

I think this is an interesting challenge. At face value it looks easy but of course we have to think about safety and I’m sure there will be other factors I can’t see now. I want to keep an open mind on this. I want to look at non ramp solutions too. Not sure what yet.

What do you think?

You may be wondering why there is a picture of a beautiful women in this post. This is a daguerreotype of Lorna Simpson (her site) by Chuck Close. I’m a huge fan of Chuck Close as is evident in my Painting Robot project. But  I’ve been thinking about the unusual wheel chair he has. It’s another way of approaching the challenge of bad walk way and building access design.

Check out this iBot machine.

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Published on: Feb 8, 2013 @ 23:02