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Board 100: Hot Wheels: Heated-Seat Wheelchair

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Engineering Physics and Physics Division (EP2D) Poster Session

Tagged Division

Engineering Physics and Physics Division (EP2D)

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--42379

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/42379

Download Count

105

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Paper Authors

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Bala Maheswaran Northeastern University

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Bala Maheswaran, PhD
Northeastern University
367 Snell Engineering Center
Boston, MA 02115

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Ayush Maurya

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Matthew Robert Pliszak

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John Alvin Roche Northeastern University

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A self driven student who is passionate about music production and excels in math and physics coursework.

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Katerina Haralambos Pashiardis

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David Ian Hunter

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Abstract

Support systems have always been needed to improve the quality of life, especially for those disabled. One of the most common examples of such a system is the wheelchair. However, providing disabled people with the comfort of warmth while using their wheelchairs is a huge step in preventing severe cold weather injuries. There is only so much heat clothing and blankets can preserve. Our green energy seat warmers provide a source of additional necessary heat required in cold temperature. We wanted to improve wheelchairs through renewable energy, so decided to designed a device called “Hot Wheels.” Our product harnesses rotational energy from the wheels and converts it into thermal energy to power heating pads below the seat and on the back of a wheelchair. The energy would come from rotating the wheels with human power, and his is mainly for manually operating wheelchair. Therefore, the amount of thermal energy produced and stored depends on the user’s energy output.

The design consist a gear system and that was attached to a Sparkfun generator that sits inside a mounting mechanism and muted on the wheelchair. With constant movement of the wheelchair, we were able to produce and supply voltage to the heating pad. The output voltage produced by the system was recorded over time through the Arduino serial plotter. The detail will be discussed in the paper. Addressing this problem thoroughly and providing heated wheelchairs to the disabled requires government and public health intervention. We hope that this could either be up for purchase or given out through government welfare for those who qualify.

Maheswaran, B., & Maurya, A., & Pliszak, M. R., & Roche, J. A., & Pashiardis, K. H., & Hunter, D. I. (2023, June), Board 100: Hot Wheels: Heated-Seat Wheelchair Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--42379

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