Helping wheelchair racers get their zooooooooom on
To win the race you have to train often and train well. If wheelchair racing is your sport, you need a way to roll as fast as possible while building strength and stamina. A team of University of Delaware engineering students took up that challenge for racers in Ghana, sponsored by the “Go Get Dem” wheelchair racing club there in collaboration with MossRehab in Philadelphia and the racing team it sponsors, Global Abilities.
The UD team - Sarah Peden of Dennis, Mass., Marjelle Scheffers of Amersfoort, The Netherlands, Gnanadesikan “Desik” Somasundaram of Wilmington, Del., and Dylan Wergelis-Isaacson of Cheltenham, Pa. - worked with faculty advisor Sarah Rooney to design a safe, portable and inexpensive device that would provide appropriate resistance and the opportunity for high-intensity training. The goal was to develop something that could be assembled from readily available materials and used on any surface by racers in Ghana.
Some early designs were too heavy, too long, not stable enough, not angled properly, too noisy, too complicated.The breakthrough came after Desik and Dylan visited an elite wheelchair training facility at the University of Illinois, talked with athletes there and examined what the top trainers did. The team revised its prototype again and an athlete tested it at MossRehab in December. The team plans to refine the design further and then get things rolling to Ghana, where they hope their work gives new traction to wheelchair athletes.
“I am very passionate about sports, especially making it available to everyone everywhere,” Marjelle said. “I believe it is important to strive to create equal opportunities around the world.”