Hi everyone,

I am a student at Brighton University studying product design, I am currently in my final year and I am designing an accessory product for the wheelchair.

I just have a few short questions for you to answer about the technical aspects of wheelchairs, if you have the time, this will really help me with my research for the project.

I would love to hear your feedback from you, to let me know what you think, it would help me with my project a huge amount. If you don't mind answering these few questions, I would be hugely grateful!

I am thinking about designing a efficient dynamo to be adaptable to all manual wheelchairs so that the user can charge their mobile phones, iPod etc whilst they ride.
Does this sound like a product wheelchair users will want or need?

Has anyone ever had a manual wheelchair with a dynamo attached to it? Did you find it difficult to ride?


Whilst riding would you like to be able to charge a product, for example a mobile phone or iPod, even though it would put a little more strain on your muscles to ride the wheelchair?


How far do you travel in your wheelchair per day on average, (only when you’re riding it)?


What type of terrain is the most used when riding your wheelchair on a day to day basis?


Would you buy this accessory if you had to change your wheels and put two new wheels on your wheelchair?


How much would you be willing to pay for this accessory so you could be able to charge up some devices, for example a mobile phone or iPod? (Please be reasonable).


What tyres do you feel that are best to use and ride around on?


Where would you want the mobile phone/iPod holder positioned around the wheelchair so its easy access to you?


Thanks very much for your time and I look forward to your answers and feedback. I hope can help!


Andrew Freshwater (Brighton University Sports Product Design)

I think you'd better just do a bit of Googling and find out the cost of wheelchair wheels before you ask us if we would be prepared to swap wheels just for a gadget like this.

This and that wheelchair light, and I'm set!

Freshie I think your idea is ridiculous. Why would think plugs and whatnot are unaccessible to us? Are we set out in the morning at the bus stop, to roll on our way and not let back indoors till sunset?

How would this make my life any easier?

Unless you have a super coolled generator you don't get energy for free
Wheeling round the house won't charge anything
In my case when I'm outside .. it's in a electric chair
As far as I'm conserned ... your on a loser
Now if you could come up with a small jet engine..................

hi dont think you'll get very far with this invention, as we can charge our mobiles ipods etc etc the same as any abled bodied person, so really wouldnt have a need to charge them whilst wheeling! as for changing our wheels purely to charge our mobile, nah dont think so, a lot of us have expensive lightweight wheels, you'd have to drag them away from us!
nice thought but really just one of those silly gadgets we can live without, sorry but you did ask.
i think you may well be onto a loser with that one, why not put a post on asking for suggestions of items / gadgets that would be of some interest / benefit to wheelchair users that might help you in right direction.

I do not think it is going to benefit any wheelchair user. If needed there are Solar chargers, wind up chargers available in the market, they are very light and portable.

Nope, I wouldn't buy this.

Sorry, but this idea is a failure from the start.

It's the kind of gift your distant family members would give you for Christmas. One up from the novelty Santa that farts on command.

In theory it's a great idea - free electricity!

But in reality I remember the dynamo I had on my mountain bike (i.e. when I was travelling at between 16 - 27 mph) and how poor a light that would give out (by the way - this was only five years ago and it was a top of the range model so I'm not referring to back in the 1940s!!) I can't imagine even on an electric chair you kicking out the constant speeds to actually build up enough of a charge to.... well light a bulb let along charge your phone (have you ever seen one of those wind up torches - with an adaptor so that you can wind up the power to charge your phone? I got one for Christmas - thanks Dad - and sweated for a good five minutes winding away like a mad thing to charge my phone with it once! Managed to make a one minute phone call before the phone died again)

As for changing your wheels? That's 45% and more (this is just a generalised measurement taken from the top of my head!) of the chair and they're not cheap at the best of times! Would you be able to manufacture enough different sizes / shapes to make it economically worth while? Or would the wheel chair user have to "suffer" with some generic size that almost fits in order to use your product?

A small bolt on item (i.e. you bolt the dynamo onto the frame and adjust it to suit your own wheel) would be more than suitable if I wanted to buy such an item. And easily removable without having to carry a spare set of wheels with you. (I am guessing something like this would be in theory by good for people who are out and about - i.e. not next to a plug socket - and suffering a dying battery rather than something you'd plan to use).
How would security go to protecting my phone from becoming an object of attention to any muggers?


I'm really new to chairs - I mean really new (and only a part time user).
But unless I'm
a ) going across an empty car park
going down hill in the method known as out of control
I don't actually go that fast. Or indeed far. A trip around the supermarket at old lady walking pace as you try and weave your way through the crowds is an achievement. Trotting around the office at work isn't going to charge anything (the static in the carpet doesn't count for this)

Now something that was able to work out how far I'd travelled (even where) and how many calories had been burnt just by my wheel revolutions - that would be interesting as a novelty item.
Or even something that made travelling easier - like a dynamo where you could use the power you'd hand cranked to charge an electric motor that you could use as a boost when going up hills...

Good luck with your studies,

that gadget did not appeal to me whenever i go to the park im forever looking over my sholder to see no one gets to closeto snatch things from me

Plenty of gadgets that'll do just that already available - As for the idea of buying new wheels at the cost of three or four hundred pounds (that's what the wheels cost without the gadget) to charge a mobile - madness! Sorry but the whole dynamo thing is just plain daft!

Surely Freshie is checking this post.. think we scared him/her off?

I think it's a swell idea, I'll take 2.

Not ever! The second law of thermodynamics says so!

As far as the idea.. I remember the dynamo on a bike I had making it like 2.5x harder to push, and I took the thing off immediately. That, combined with the very low light output made it next to useless. Unless the tool was a real life saver, there isn't any way I would increase the amount of work involved in the already tedious task of being a crip.