Thomas Crespo, Truly Thomas, Daniel Combes, John D’Alessio, Samantha Lenhardt, Nicolas Rosario, Anna Terlep, Pierce Vaccaro

Our team was selected to design a new walker concept with an active fall prevention system. With a prevalence of the need for assisted walking due to falling, especially among the older population, our team was tasked with creating a new and innovative walker design that would detect and take steps to mitigate the risk of falling for the target market. As such, a main goal for our team was to come up with a walker that provided the general features a regular walker would but went further and included aspects that have not been seen or are not regularly seen within this market. Our team was tasked with finding a way to incorporate a braking system that is not hand-operated since not all users have the hand strength to apply these brakes. Our final design includes an aluminum frame with armrests and handles at the top that can be adjusted for different heights. This height adjustment is operated by a handle that is pulled out for the user to then adjust the height to their liking. On the handles are buttons that allow the user to activate the brakes, either gradually or fully. A belt system is also included in our design that activates the brakes if the user moves too far away from the walker due to falling or instability. The braking system is a bicycle brake system applied electronically through the buttons and mechanically by the belt system. For the fall prevention system, we incorporated struts on the walker that are activated automatically if the walker is tilted too far on either side. To detect this, we added a tilt sensor. This tilt sensor along with the brake attachment that electronically applies to the brakes is stored in a small box on the side of the walker.