Assistive Drink Holder

GOALS: create a drink holder wheelchair attatchment
SKILLS: Rapid Prototyping, 3D printing, Waterjet, Laser Cutter, Fabrication, User Testing

Our client for this project had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy which resulted in them having no movement below the neck. Because of this, they have trouble drinking without the help of a caregiver. They currently have a stationary drink holder is essentially an elevated table which allows them to drive their powered wheelchair up to the cup and drink, however, this solution is limited becuase it doesn't allow for independence when they are outside of the house. Our task was to create a device that would enable our client to drink independently on the go.

Design Constraints

Our client did not want a design like these because of the lack of stability and the way the long plastic channels would alter the taste

Low-Fidelity Prototyping

Through talking with our client, we learned that they wanted to have the design be as unobtrusive as possible. So while in the low-fidelity phase, we experimented with a bunch of mechanisms on how to make our design as low-profile as possible. We also experimented with differnet ways we could accomodate different drink sizes on the cupholder end of things.

Medium Fidelity Prototyping

Final Design

Future Improvements

This was one of my first hands on, open ended projects at Tufts, and if I were continue working on it, heres what I would implement:

Convert the telescoping mechanism for a linear rail to make it easier to motorize the mechanism
Allow the cup mechansim to fit neatly underneath the arm rest