SAFETY FRAME

This project was a 10 week course in which we addressed a real life problem by designing and building a solution within a $500 budget. Each member of our team participated in athletics and had first-hand experience with sports injuries. Our initial goal was to develop a better injury rehabilitation device and looked to the ubiquitous treadmill. This is an effective strengthening and recovery tool but limited due to its singular directional axis. We wanted to improve upon this by creating a multidirectional treadmill which would facilitate radial movements in all directions. After the first few weeks of work, we were disappointed to learn from our engineering board that the treadmill design was too large a scope for the course. We were then directed to focus solely on the safety harness infrastructure which was needed to support the recovering patient while on the treadmill—to lessen the load or protect in case of loss of balance. Since it was further intended to work with our multidirectional treadmill, it had to allow for 360 degrees of motion. We built and successfully tested it on a self-propelled treadmill, and found that the device was still useful for potentially decreasing the runner’s load on the treadmill and a safe insurance in case of loss of balance.

 

Designing and building this project was an incredible learning experience of getting to work with a team for hours on end, running into physical limitations and having to work around them, and using our hands and the machine shop to create a physical product. See project below.