Power-Assist Wheelchair Attachment

This senior design project sought to combine the best characteristics of manual and power wheelchairs by creating a battery-powered attachment to propel a manual wheelchair. The primary customer needs were determined to be affordability, portability, and travel on uneven surfaces. After the initial prototype, using a hub motor proved unsuccessful, so a second design was developed that consisted of a gear reduction motor and drive wheel connected to the back of the wheelchair by a trailing arm that could be easily attached/detached from the frame. The prototype of the second design succeeded in meeting most of the project goals related to cost, off-road capability, inclines, and range. Improvements can be made by reducing the attachment weight and improving user control of the device

Social Media and the Public Sector

{Excerpt} Social media is revolutionizing the way we live, learn, work, and play. Elements of the private sector have begun to thrive on opportunities to forge, build, and deepen relationships. Some are transforming their organizational structures and opening their corporate ecosystems in consequence. The public sector is a relative newcomer. It too can drive stakeholder involvement and satisfaction. Global conversations, especially among Generation Y, were born circa 2004. Beginning 1995 until then, the internet had hosted static, one-way websites. These were places to visit passively, retrieve information from, and perhaps post comments about by electronic mail. Sixteen years later, Web 2.0 enables many-to-many connections in numerous domains of interest and practice, powered by the increasing use of blogs, image and video sharing, mashups, podcasts, ratings, Really Simple Syndication, social bookmarking, tweets, widgets, and wikis, among others. Today, people expect the internet to be user-centric

Friend or Foe: Towards a Critical Assessment of Direct Payments

Direct payments enable individuals to purchase their own care rather than have directly provided services. This article unpacks the complexities involved in the implementation of direct payments by addressing the need to reconcile the strong evidence of their benefits with emerging concerns about the wider consequences of their implementation. One practice that highlights the conflicts at the heart of direct payments is the employment of personal assistants. While directly employing personal assistants offers maximum benefit for recipients, it also produces the strongest concerns. Therefore, an understanding of the context of direct payments, specifically the practice of employing personal assistants, is used to explore these complexities in greater depth. The discussion concludes by arguing for a more critical awareness of the wider context in which direct payments are being developed in order to understand how this context can open up or limit opportunities for greater self-determination. It suggests a number of factors that need to be addressed to ensure that direct payments continue to be a progressive strategy. These include reconciling conflicting ideologies such as those advocating individual choice and/or collective provision; the need for political action to secure adequate resources; and the development of alternative strategies such as cooperatives to address the collective needs of direct payment recipients and workers

Transportation network companies as cost reduction strategies for paratransit

Paratransit service is an auxiliary type of public transportation provided for people with disabilities and older adults. Federal ADA regulations require all transit agencies receiving federal funding to provide paratransit service, but the per trip cost to transit operators is extremely expensive. Many transit agencies are looking for ways to reduce costs without limiting services. For many agencies, this results in providing the minimum services as required by ADA regulations. However, Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) has taken a different approach to cost reduction by entering into one of the first partnerships with transportation network companies. In September 2016, MBTA’s paratransit service, The Ride, began a partnership with both Uber and Lyft as a cost reduction strategy for paratransit provision. Since the beginning of the partnership, MBTA has been able to reduce costs of providing paratransit while maintaining the same level of service. This report will examine the benefits and limitations of such partnerships between transit agencies and transportation network companies, using MBTA’s The Ride partnership as an example for potentially successful partnerships throughout the United States.Community and Regional Plannin

A Tissue Engineering product development pathway

Tissue engineering is a field of inquiry and research that uses engineering techniques and principles of biological sciences to develop functional substitutes for reconstruction of damaged organs. Commercial translation of tissue engineering products is currently in progress all over the world. Many companies are moving their interest towards this market segment that grows by 6% per year. Aim of this thesis is to probe the possibility of developing tissue engineering products in the most cost-effective way, minimizing the industrial risk and developing a specific fund raising model. Tissue engineering is based on three main features: cells, scaffolds and bioreactors. Cells are seeded on a scaffold and cultured in a bioreactor in order to obtain a tissue engineering product. Nevertheless, developing cell carrying products is hampered by certification claims ("advanced therapies" certification rules) that unbearably increase R&D and certification costs and can be faced by either big companies or start-ups of big companies and spin-offs of complex aggregates of research centers involved in advanced cell research. On the other hand, scaffolds (certification class IIb) and bioreactors for tissue engineering (certification class I) can be developed with a lower economic effort, being the competition based on innovation, since their market is in the "growth phase" for scaffolds and in the "introduction phase" for bioreactors in the Levitt's product life cycle theory. Purpose of this thesis is to basically study scaffold and bioreactor features, then to preliminarily design some models of bioreactors and, eventually, to set a business model, based on private and public fund raising, aimed to the development of scaffolds for dental implantology and of bioreactors for cardiovascular and bone tissue engineering. Finally, a business plan of a company being spin-off of Politecnico di Torino and industrial start-up has been elaborate

Automated precision passing system

Athletes are always seeking ways to improve their performance. Down time and a lack of capable throwers prevent athletic receivers from practicing their skills. We hope to aid athletes in receiving drills within their respective sports and increase practice efficiency. In order to achieve this, the machine has one major axis of rotation driven by a motor. This enables it to adjust where the ball is being thrown. Using an Arduino Uno coupled with a Roboteq AX1500 motor driver, the Automated Precision Passing System is able to throw a ball to a specified point in space by adjusting both the azimuth and ball-throwing motor speed. Our testing shows that our prototype has the ability to position itself in three different orientations as well as adjust the launch motor speed, but we were unable to launch the ball the original distance that we desired. From this project, we gained valuable knowledge in the areas of machine design, control systems, and project management. In order to continue the project and create a functional consumer product there are several improvements that need to be made to the system. The Automated Precision Passing System needs to be more rigid, have more power, and include more throwing positions

Community Development Evaluation Storymap and Legend

Community based organizations, funders, and intermediary organizations working in the community development field have a shared interest in building stronger organizations and stronger communities. Through evaluation these organizations can learn how their programs and activities contribute to the achievement of these goals, and how to improve their effectiveness and the well-being of their communities. Yet, evaluation is rarely seen as part of a non-judgemental organizational learning process. Instead, the term "evaluation" has often generated anxiety and confusion. The Community Development Storymap project is a response to those concerns.Illustrations found in this document were produced by Grove Consultants