Col­in Gal­lois and Xavier Gar­cia, who both grad­u­at­ed this year with the major Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and the spe­cial­i­ty Indus­tri­al Design, came “first” in the French edi­tion of the James Dyson Award, a com­pe­ti­tion that UTC had already won in recent years. 

Freewheelchair, that makes life easier for disabled persons

Free­wheel­chair con­sists of a set of two wheels that can be mount­ed on any mod­el of wheel­chair, replac­ing the stan­dard issue wheels. The first design aim is to avoid chair-bound users who use the push-ring from jam­ming their fin­gers or suf­fer­ing from wear and tear. 

The sec­ond aim is to pro­vide for eas­i­er motion. With Free­wheel­chair, the ergonom­i­cal­ly designed push-ring does not rotate in synch. with the rear wheel, so the user can leave his/her hands on the push ring while mov­ing, i.e., with the rear wheel turning. 

More­over, sys­tem also pro­vides for brak­ing with fric­tion the hands, by “back-ped­alling”.

The next stage of the Dyson Competition – the international edition

The over­ar­ch­ing aim of the com­pe­ti­tions to encour­age young design-ori­ent­ed engi­neers to be more cre­ative and to rein­vent day-to-day objects, will now move into its sec­ond phase. 

A Jury com­posed of Dyson engi­neers and design­ers will pre-select 20 projects from the lau­re­ates of the 22 coun­tries com­pet­ing. The final lau­rate and Win­ner of the Award will be des­ig­nat­ed in Octo­ber, and will receive a Prize of 45 000 $US, with a 7 500 $US award going to his/her University. 

UTC: a regular contender for the James Dyson Award

UTC already won the French edi­tion of the James Dyson Award in 2013, thanks to their INHALE Project pre­sent­ed by Vin­cent Bih­ler and Vic­tor Che­ung. We also note that it is a sec­ond run for Xavier Gar­cia who was already among the final­ists of the 2015 French edi­tion for his Weep­rint eco­log­i­cal printer. 

More about the Free­wheel­chair at –

- http://www.xaviergarcia.fr/freewheelchair

- http://colingallois.fr

- http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/fr/

More about Weep­rint on the UTC Web TV at:

- Sur la webTV de l’UTC : http://buff.ly/2cIkMEs

- Dans notre mag­a­zine Inter­ac­tions : http://buff.ly/2cIjAkg

More about Inhale at:

http://buff.ly/2c9zY8d