and often bewildering range of requests.
Often responses were light-hearted; “Any design you may come up
with will be hard to:
Be affordable to disabled persons (not usual rip-off medical/mobility
prices);
Open gates, cross footbridges, climb steps, climb over stiles;
Carry a wheelchair;
Suit all disability types;
Adhere to bylaws and legislation to not be restricted where you can
go;
Transport it to where you want to use it; right thing to do in terms of product liability, especially with the chair
Be road legal. potentially tackling severe terrain.
But then a Sherman tank would address most of these problems!” Money matters
Through all the responses, it soon became obvious that repeated Our third big problem was that of fi nancing our fi rst production runs.
themes kept on returning, such as price, transportability, off road I’m sure all small businesses fi nd sourcing initial working capital to be
capability and ease of use. Research into footpath and road legislation challenging, but in our case we also had a completely new niche product.
added restrictions on maximum width, weight and speed limits into the It was helpful to show the Boma design and development was the
design mix. result of a genuine need and based on a realistic specifi cation derived
Our fi rst few prototypes (designed with Inventor software) from requests from potential customers. Moreover, we showed that
never made it to the manufacture stage because developments and our prototypes had generated signifi cant inquiries through the Africa
improvements were made so quickly. Design Registrations, Patent expedition and subsequent promotional activity.
Applications and Trade Marking were carried out throughout the The Boma wheelchair available today is based on a combination of
development process. Like many small businesses, we found patenting to lightweight wheelchair and mountain bike technology, and is unique in
be expensive and complex and Design Registrations to be a more cost being easily accessible, transportable, simple to control and extremely
effective, if somewhat weaker, form of IP protection. (NB. In many ways capable off road.
our advantage comes not from the strength of our IP but from our Activities such as camping, beach access, mountain biking, walking the
experience and constant development within the niche of powered off dog, escaping the countryside and even expeditions all become possible
road wheelchairs.) with a Boma.
With a small private investment and the assistance of two university We are already distributing the Boma in the UK and France and plan
friends, we built our fi rst prototype in 2005, which was used by a to expand further into Europe later this year.
disabled adventurer on an expedition across Africa. Our aim is for Molten Rock to become a one-stop-shop for all
Further investment saw a pre-production machine through adventurous outdoor equipment, by bringing together outdoor products
certifi cation, registration and testing and our fi rst production chair was from the Boma, to accessible climbing gear, to portable hoists and
exhibited in June 2007. outdoor clothing. We are also interested in strategic alliances with other
businesses in the UK in the outdoor activity or disability equipment
In a class of its own markets.
Design for testing and certifi cation was made all the more diffi cult by For more information, please visit www. moltenrock.co.uk.
the fact that the Boma was effectively an entirely new class of mobility
device. Since we were building the chair as a mobility device for disabled
people, it would naturally fall under the ISO/British Standards for
electrically powered wheelchairs.
On the other hand, we were building the chair to operate in
environments way beyond anything expected of a typical powered
wheelchair. As such, the shocks and loads faced by both rider and
chair would be signifi cantly different to those of a typical
powered wheelchair in a domestic/pavement
environment.
Put simply, our product exists so that
individuals who are less physically
able can, if they choose, put
themselves in potentially severe
and unpredictable terrain. After
much discussion, we went for a
‘belt-and-braces’ approach by
applying appropriate existing
standards, as well as developing
our own durability programme
in conjunction with an automotive
proving ground. Despite being
expensive, we felt this was the
Engineering Designer July/August 2009
21
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