BacKground

Although paraplegia is considered one of the major health burdens in society, numerous gadgets have been invented to give people with paraplegia a convenient lifestyle. In today's world, being an independent person is an inevitable challenge. Driving is an integral part of independence and driving as a paraplegic person, like many daily activities, can be done with the help of gadgets or prosthetics. I would love to take the privilege here and mention that our team had this great opportunity to add this meaningful independence in a person's life. 

Being a self-made industrialist and a passionate driver, Mr. S. V. Deshpande always had control over his life, until one day when he lost control over his legs in an unfortunate accident. He could not move his legs; his dependency on family members to do daily activities increased. He learned to manage his routine with time. Although he used to get the help of his family and drivers for daily traveling,  the thought of being dependent on one of the things he loved the most was frustrating for him. That is when he reached out to me through the reference of our college's TPO for designing a safe and reliable product that would help him drive his car for local commutes. 

The development process

First, we closely analyzed the existing solutions in the market and realized that these products were complicated, costly, and needed too many modifications on the steering wheel assembly/ dashboard.

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We had many insightful need-finding sessions with the Client and his newly introduced friends having a similar impairment from different backgrounds (mainly defense). These sessions were very crucial in defining the direction and starting point of the development process. Keeping the modifications in the interior of the car minimum to maintain the aesthetics, we had to design an attachment that would be easy to install in most of the auto-gear automobiles in the present market. Creating a safe, affordable, lightweight, ergonomic, and low maintenance product that would be available to everyone in the market was our design objective. This attachment had to be hand operated with simple operations, intuitive control actions, and easy to adapt to customization to the relevant anthropometric data. These requirements by our actively involved Client eventually became our product's unique selling points and made it out-standing from the rest.

Throughout the iterative product development process, we worked closely with the Client, RTO officials for necessary grants and certifications, Service outlets of automobile companies to study shapes and actuation mechanisms of various accelerators and brakes for different car models. We also performed essential calculations to calculate the force required to actuate the accelerator and brakes designed, considering lower limbs' use. We explored and conceptualized multiple designs that would suffice the requirements.

(Unfortunately, I have lost all the 3D files and renders in a Hard Drive crash. I am reworking on the project to optimize the weight using generative design as Mr. Deshpande is quite bored and wants something new)

We moved forward with one of the convincing concepts that were inspired by the eagle claw. After designing and engineering analysis, we quickly prototyped the product in our workshop. Because of the simple design, we made the prototype at a 10% cost of the market products. We tested the product rigorously using the Client's car (Maruti-Suzuki Celerio) for over 200+ kilometers on different driving conditions with multiple drivers. We learned and improved some prime elements in testing, such as the need for weight balance, booted ergonomic considerations, rigidity, robustness, etc. Finally, at the end of the semester, we presented a product to the Client with solid confidence.

The result

He sat in the driving seat and went for a drive on our campus. That day we realized how a person's smile could make a difference. When he got out of the car after driving his car with our attachment, the smile that we saw when he got out of the vehicle was of absolute happiness. We realized how we could apply creative thinking and engineering to make a positive difference in society. This prototype was later RTO verified and ready to launch as a 'JoyDrive' car attachment. My design journey started with the JoyDrive, and it always will be the root of my growth. As an appreciation of our work, my team was awarded by our Institute with the prestigious Mauryaa Excellence Award.