Education Project for Eletrical Engineering students

[LeonAbelmann]

@LeonAbelmann
I would however suggest that it is a waste of time getting a chair , until you have a reliable signal source ( brain wave reading etc ) that you can use as an INPUT to any of your afore mentioned interfaces.

You are right. Therefore, the students will be provided with a basic working system, using bio-signals from muscles (EMG). They will improve upon that configuration. Secondly, the wheelchair will be at the centre of the project room, giving students a strong sense to be working on a real-world application.

I have the impression that it would even be more motivating if my students could interact with a power wheelchair user. What are your thoughts about this?

[Burgerman]

My thoughts are that for that to be useful you wuld need the 1 in 1000 user that actually knew something useful. If you ask most, or any "experts" in the medical industry you will get nonsense and probably a built in kettle or something.

[woodygb]

Note... I am able bodied and NOT a wheelchair user.

It is probably a good idea for your students to interact with a "wheelchair user" ...however ...the umbrella definition of a "wheelchair user " covers a VAST range of mobility problems.

Are you intending to try and improve a specific aspect of a select group?

[Burgerman]

I am a wheelchair user, and definitey not representitive of the average chair user or the industry who all seem pretty much clueless. And OT's or study groups etc all seem to be a waste of time. They mostly do not know whats possible, dont understand physics, chairs, etc in any way. So dont understand the downsides of the things they suggest. Especially the so called experts. About the only place I ever found any of those with a clue is on here...

[biscuit]

...the wheelchair will be at the centre of the project room, giving students a strong sense to be working on a real-world application.

I have the impression that it would even be more motivating if my students could interact with a power wheelchair user. What are your thoughts about this?

Sounds to me like this is for the look of things, in which case I'd say the best one is a chair with a good paint job.

Much very good information is to be found on this forum (as you will have noticed...)

A real powerchair user is much the same as an ambulant person. That is to say, they know absolutely nothing about how to work wheelchairs. They do as they are told even if it puts them to endless unnecessary trouble. Youtubes are also useless, second only to mobility shops. So get something that can be programmed and visit here a lot!

[ex-Gooserider]

There was mention earlier about chair manufacturers (really the control system manufacturers, P&G in the case of R-net) protecting their CAN-bus signals... This is VERY true, and one of the biggest reasons why folks here have been talking about using voltage swing for input, either with an Omni box or by emulating the actual joystick and replacing it by plugging in to the joystick pod in place of it...

Emulating the actual signals between the different modules is a very difficult problem in reverse engineering the proprietary manufacturer signal system. Lots of folks have been trying to do that, but far as I know, nobody really has had much luck doing it...

In terms of the idea of having an 'obstacle avoidance' system like Luci is not bad as a failsafe, depending on who your test subjects are... We have had many folks (Burgerman included) that have done radio control systems for their chairs... One of the things we try hard to emphasize is that an RC chair should only be used by individual with the mental and physical ability to at least hit an E-stop if things go wrong... I suspect that any sort of muscle / brain control system would be far less reliable than a radio, so that caution would apply even more, and it probably would not be bad to have a Luci type system as a further backup....

ex-Gooserider

[slomobile]

There is this https://www.wheelchairdriver.com/board/ ... et#p107341
I've tried it, it works. Took about 15 minutes. And he has a Discord to help out.