SpiritSeat

Overview

SpiritSeat is a wheelchair seat mechanism designed to improve health and comfort for wheelchair users. The most significant side effect of wheelchair use is reduced blood circulation due to the user's lower body remaining in a stable position for long periods of time. This side effect deprives the body of critical oxygen and nutrients. Additionally, bedsores may develop from prolonged sitting in one position. SpiritSeat allows the user to modify the shape and orientation of the seat to improve blood flow through different parts of their legs. This invention uses servo motors, shafts with cams, and a small computer programmed to control the shape of the seat. SpiritSeat can be controlled by knobs via potentiometers or voice recognition to raise and lower sections of the seat pad. These two modes of control (hand or voice) were chosen to give potentially disabled users different options for controlling the seat. SpiritSeat is intended to be placed underneath the seat pad of a wheelchair. The user can then adjust the seat pad contour while the wheelchair is occupied. The seat is divided into multiple sections, each having the ability to move up or down independently. SpiritSeat is designed to allow the user to move individual sections of the seat pad to improve circulation and increase the comfort of the user.

Awards (1)

• Category Award: 2

Competition history

• CSEF 2023 Applied Mechanics & Structures · Entry J0301

Resources

• CSEF published award list ↗
• CSEF published award list ↗
• CSEF published award list ↗
• CSEF public showcase (Internet Archive capture) ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Engineering projects
• CSEF Engineering projects
• Every CSEF 2023 project
• CSEF Category Award: 2 winners