Lift-Assist

2015
Maker Competition

While this project lives a while in the past, it is near and dear to my heart. After a 36 hour competition of receiving the prompt and rapid prototyping, we - a randomly assigned team (me, another designer, and two engineers) - were able to come up with a simplistic design approach to fundamentally better the world around us.

A non-electric-plugged-in-hunk-of-gravity, that allows the user to sit and stand more comfortably without strain- designed specifically to assist people who identify as elder adults or having a disability.

  • How do we create a chair uses a person's weight and tension to lift them back to standing?

    Similar products on the market at the time were clunky power-operated chairs. While useful, there are cases of power outages, backup generators going out, and the user getting stuck for hours or days.

  • the “Lift-assist” chair is a lightweight, portable, compact and comfortable non-electric lifting chair.

    Further prototyping would have established lighter weight material. We also looked into potential outsourcing for reaching a wider market of users that may not be able to afford current market items- a sort of mail and build with varying weights of ‘bungee’.

  • After a presentation and an expo-like critique. We won the competition across category and hoped to re-start the project to be professionally sold.

    This would be a business model that focuses on accessibility for all - whether cheap or a kit that could be built by a family member.