[Apparelyzed]

Folding Wheelchair Wheel

To whom it may concern,

We are MBA students at Imperial College London investigating the commercial feasibility of a folding wheel for application in manual wheelchairs. As part of our research we are speaking with key stakeholders in this market:

Users
Carers
Manufacturers and suppliers
Charities and Government bodies
Service providers (travel, sport)

As a key stakeholder, we would value any insight you could provide on the needs of wheelchair users and your professional opinion about the feasibility of this folding wheel.



The inventor of this wheel is an industrial design graduate from Imperial College and the Royal College of Art and a finalist in the 2008 Saatchi & Saatchi Award for World Changing Ideas. A demonstration of a working prototype can be seen here.

We would greatly appreciate your response to this email.

Best regards,

Piers Clough
piers.clough07@imperial.ac.uk
07736 312 666

P.S. please see below for press coverage.

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_...icle3287682.ece

http://www.dexigner.com/design_news/world-...-announced.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtm...sciwheel123.xml

[Texaswheelz]

If it was just as sturdy as a normal wheel then I could see it being very usable, even if not, I can still see high demand for something like this for transport chairs. It would make it very easy to break the chair down for sticking in a trunk of a car or back seat. There are a lot of elderly that would appreciate this wheel design I think.

[Trouper]

You have my vote! I would be interested in having a set on my daughters chair. I think that the practicality is obvious. Excellent idea, you are to be commended!

John

[Piers Clough]

Many thanks for your response to this - would you be happy to take part in an online survey for this project?

This post has been edited by Piers Clough: 20 May 2008 - 08:31 PM

[Apparelyzed]

Hi Piers,

Please feel free to post the web address to your survey for members to participate.

Regards

Simon

[Piers Clough]

As a key stakeholder, we would value any insight you could provide on the needs of users and carers and have put together a short survey we would very much appreciate you completing by 9th June. Please click here to take the survey.

This post has been edited by Piers Clough: 20 May 2008 - 08:33 PM

[terrylifts]

Hai,

Its a new idea that I welcome. This will be a great help to disabled persons who use the manual wheelchair. Try to bring out something useful to help the society.

This post has been edited by terrylifts: 21 May 2008 - 06:39 AM