From dream to Reality
By : Lam Wah-shing, Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering
Have you ever imagined inventing or creating a brand new product that can change the world? It might seem like an unrealistic thought, but scientific research is meant to transform unrealistic thoughts into reality.
My invention is a wheelchair – a self-transformable device that helps users get into taxis and private cars. This idea of a transformable wheelchair came about because of a minor incident one day. I was on my way to CityU when I saw someone in a wheelchair trying unsuccessfully to get into a taxi. The driver didn’t offer to help and in the end the taxi drove off. At the time my father was having some health issues and might have had to use a wheelchair. And so I thought: is it possible for wheelchair users to get in a car without anyone’s help? Are there any relevant products on the market to help them? I did some research and realised that indeed, there were no relevant wheelchair models on the market.
To an engineering student, this was a great opportunity to get creative and use what I had learned. After two weeks of literature review and design, I had an initial concept for a transformable wheelchair. It just so happened that a company organised a technology innovation competition across all colleges in Hong Kong, with prize money for the winning team, which was just what I needed for research and development. So I teamed up with a group of friends with similar interests in technology and innovation and we entered the competition. We won the silver award with our unique concept. We were awarded additional capital from the company for R&D, to turn our concept into reality and build an actual transformable wheelchair.
CityU is dedicated to research and innovation. So I took my R&D proposal to seek help from CityU’s Professor Sun Dong, Head of the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering (MBE), and an expert in mechatronics. Professor Sun strongly supported my research after listening to my presentation, and was glad to be my mentor. On top of that, with full support from the MBE laboratory, we spent four months building a prototype.
Those four months were very memorable, from the modification of the wheelchair to processing mechanical parts, from theory in textbooks to creating my own model and conducting mechanical analysis. This experience helped me understand the challenges as well as the sense of fulfillment involved with R&D. In the end, the company, Professor Sun and I were all happy with this interesting wheelchair design; and it was shown to the outside world as an exhibit at CityU’s Discovery Festival in 2017. It was very encouraging to attract public attention for my little invention. I now aspire to conduct further research in the future.
Although this self-transformable wheelchair has not changed the world, the research and development will continue. Next year I will be in my fourth year, and this wheelchair will be my final-year project. I will try my best to create a product that helps those in need.