Your Help Please?

[RubesA]

Hello All!

I am trying to find parents who are wheelchair users to ask them some questions... so if you are such a person, PLEASE continue to read this! :)

In October, I will be beginning the final year of my Industrial Design and Technology degree at Loughborough University. For part of this year, I have to design a product of my own, and I am thinking about designing something to help parents who need to use a wheelchair to transport their baby/young child around (as I gather a pushchair is incredibly tricky!). I'm not a parent, but I am disabled, so I realise that problems like this can be incredibly frustrating - so I want to be able to solve one of them!

If there are any parents on here who could give me their opinions about what type of product may help, or how they cope at the moment, I would REALLY appreciate your responses. I'm currently just researching the product idea, so I need to gather as much information as possible.

If you would rather email, please contact me on: [email protected]

Many Thanks,

Ruby :)

Hi ,if you need help count me in.

You may want to read my blog to check out my history first, get an idea of how my family function etc. My blog is here under positive disABLEd parents or blog connection on link at end as well.

Always happy to help designers, if disabled people don't like the way something doesn't work or that they need a gaggle of carers because design is limited where disability and normal life is concerned them least we can do is try help future generations of disabled people and parents by contributing to designers knowledge.

So hit me with it. Or us, may be others who help on here, they are a decent bunch.

Hope I can help because the car seat designers such as Carkoon and Maxi Cosi Axiss, finally are understanding accessibility issues of seats but next in line has to be buggy manufacturers!

C Jephcott.

disabledpositiveparent.blogspot.com

Hello :)

Thank you for your response, I really appreciate your offer of help. However, I have bad news. My lecturer has told me I'm not allowed to develop a product like the one I had suggested (because he's working on a product like that independently at the moment!), so I am going to have to re-think what I am going to work on. So disappointing!

If you, or anyone else has any other ideas for problems that could be solved by a non-existent product, please do let me know!

Thanks again,

Ruby

How about something for a disabled parent to be able to use a trolley with children? As far as I know this doesn't exist, and would be incredibly useful!

OP, I know you asked for wheelchair users. How about guide-dog users instead? I am putting off getting a guide dog, because there doesn't seem to be a good way of juggling guide dog and (double) pushchair. Would be great to have a solution!

I second butterflyface's trolley idea. It would have been a life saver.

Hi Ruby

I sae your post on Mumsnet about your final year project. With the start of term fast approaching I was wondering if you had made any decisions about what you might do for your final year project?

I am disabled (in a wheelchair). I am also pregnant and live in Loughborough (I even used to attend Loughborough University). I have loads of ideas that might be of interest to you and believe it or not, I was planning to contact the Design and Technology department very soon to find out if any students were looking for final year project ideas!

Please get in touch. It would be lovely to hear about your project plans. (I have helped 2 previous students with their D&T final year project at Loughborough - 1 was for a suitcase that attached to the front of a wheelchair and so did not need carrying or pulling and the other was for a communication aid between swimmers and coaches).

Good luck and best wishes, Fi