Prizewinners
Martin Harris BA (Hons) StudIED
The Walking Chair I have recently completed my BA (Hons) product design degree at the University of Derby, graduating with first class honours. The walking chair was designed as part of my final year major project. Although I am not disabled the walking chair is something I have been interested in for a long time after discovering the walking sculptures of Theo Jansen. The walking chair is a prototype walking mobility aid designed to provide increased freedom to wheelchair users. The fully functional prototype has been featured in the Derby Telegraph, BBC Radio Derby and the Daily Mail and more information is available on the website at
www.walkingchair.co.uk.
By utilising legs instead of wheels the chair is capable of travelling on a wider range of surfaces both indoors and out. For travelling indoors or on pavements a wheelchair is an ideal solution, but to travel on the beach or through a park a conventional wheelchair is not up to the task. Legs have the ability to step over obstacles as opposed to rolling through or over them; this significantly improves the performance on soft or uneven surfaces outdoors.
The walking chair uses a heavy duty walking mechanism inspired by the sculptures of artist and engineer Theo Jansen. I first saw Jansen’s work many years ago; he calls the walking sculptures ‘Strandbeests’. The walking mechanism had so much potential and I wanted to put it to a practical purpose. The walking mechanism has 12 individual legs that work in pairs to provide a smooth and
reliable walking motion. My final year project was to integrate the mechanism into a mobility chair. The compact design of the leg mechanism allows the chair to travel off road on surfaces such as grass, sand and mud, as well as indoors, easily fitting through regular doorways and hallways.
The walking chair has been designed with a fully adjustable ergonomic seat. Every aspect of the seat can be adjusted to ensure a perfect fit for all users within the 5th to 95th percentile anthropometric range for British adults. The frame of the seat can slide to adjust the size and position of every element of the chair; the cushions have been designed to change shape to allow a single set of cushions to adjust with the size and shape of the seat.
The walking chair design is compliant with the DVLA mobility aid regulations. It is categorised as a class 2 mobility aid, with a maximum speed of 4mph and within the weight limit of 113kg. A class 2 mobility aid is permitted for use on the pavements without the need for tax or registration, although it is not permitted on the roads.
The purpose of the project was to demonstrate the potential of the Theo Jansen mechanism by applying it to a viable and practical product. The walking chair has the ability to outperform a wheelchair outdoors and still perform indoors. This provides a truly all terrain mobility aid able to accommodate almost all adult users in the ‘one size fits all’ chair. I am very proud to have my project chosen for the IED award and from here I look forward to a career using my skills as a designer.
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