This is the product that my team and I developed for 2.009 - Product Engineering Process, MIT’s senior capstone course for mechanical engineers

This class taught us the product development cycle, starting with collaborative brainstorming exercises to generate creative ideas, all the way to creating functional prototypes and MVPs stemming from customer discovery and market analysis.

My team and I decided to pursue a product that would assist new wheelchair users in moving through doorways more comfortably. When navigating through doorways, wheelchair users often have to hold the door open with one hand, while simultaneously steering and moving their wheelchair forward with the other hand. After interviewing over a dozen wheelchair users, we learned that this process is actually quite strenuous and often leads to pain in the shoulders, especially with heavier doors. This led us to create Auxilia, a retrofittable wheelchair attachment that props doors open, liberating both hands of the wheelchair user while moving through doorways.

I was primarily responsible for the development of the aluminum mounting bracket for Axulia. This bracket serves as the mechanical interface between the wheelchair and the polyethylene rail that keeps the door propped open. The design was inspired by common shaft collars typically found in machine shops.

There were numerous design-constraints and user-requirements to account for in developing this bracket. The bracket needed to be quick to deploy, safe to operate, and could not extend beyond the encompassing volume of the wheelchair. After iterating over several 3D models of the mounting bracket, it was clear that the biggest challenge in creating this bracket would be programming the CAM profile for a 3-axis CNC mill. 

This bracket was designed with 2 thru-holes and 2 blind-holes on different planes, including fillets on all of the sharp edges. This meant that we needed to divide the CAM profile into 3 separate machining operations, requiring us to reorient the bracket in the jaws of the vice for each operation. 

Ultimately, Auxilia was a huge success in that it was quick to install, easy to use, and most importantly, made it significantly easier for wheelchair users to go through doorways painlessly!