Power Wheelchair Canopy

Some power wheelchair users can not drive and independently hold an umbrella at the time because they do not have much upper body strength. Therefore, users are unprotected from the rain and are getting soaking wet. One of the members of this group is in a wheelchair and faces this problem. He has previously searched for something to protect him from rain, but could not found something he could independently use. What users need is a powered umbrella that attaches to their power wheelchair. There is no such umbrella available in the market. In this project, the solution to this problem will be designed and built in the form of an umbrella for his wheelchair. Exploration of various methods of rain protect will be explored. Calculations will be performed to verify that everything will work when assembled. The prototype will then be built. Assuming there will be some issues, as there always seem to be, several iterations of the prototype will be built. This is assuming that there will still be money left in the budget to complete these other iterations. It is also desired to make it inexpensive. This will allow power wheelchair users all over the world to purchase it for themselves. In order to achieve this, the project will lean heavily on the 3-D printing capabilities that the University of Akron has to offer