.png)
Leg lifting device for easy car entry
Engineering Design
March 2025 - April 2025
<aside>
The client is a 50 year old woman with Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. She struggles with many challenges, but a major struggle we focused on is her struggle to lift her right leg up while entering a car. This movement is difficult due to a loss of dexterity and strength on her right side.
This designed mechanism needs to:
<aside>
My team developed Uplift, a rachet and clamp system to help our client lift their leg into the car. This device hooks onto the car support handle, a special clamp goes around the leg, and a strap rachet is used to pull the leg up, where it can be easily slid into the car.
</aside>
<aside>
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is caused by the immune system attacking the myelin sheath of neurons, causing neuronal degeneration [1]. Our client predominantly experiences fatigue and muscle weakness on the right side of the body. Among others, this posed the challenge of her entering a car, as she is unable to bend her leg and lift it in.
</aside>
<aside>
Our initial idea was a pully. I then expanded upon this design by suggesting it could attach to the client’s brace using a electromagnet. This way the pully system could attach to the brace and provide mechanical advantage to help the client pull her leg up (shown in the picture on the right). However, it was pointed out that an electromagnet would require far greater current then we had access to, prompting me to create the claw design I finally decided on.
</aside>
<aside>
The picture on the right shows one of our initial prototypes. We built the pully system and a Velcro strap (as a placeholder for the claw that I was modeling). However, we realized that the pully system tangled easily and took up a lot of space. I then suggested the use of a strap rachet, which can be seen in the final prototype.
</aside>
<aside>
I designed each part of the claw clamp and created a fully constrained CAD Model on Autodesk Inventor to showcase my design. This is a demonstration of the CAD Assembly in Autodesk Inventor showcasing how this claw functions. The two claws open and close. The pawl is pushed on by a spring loaded pin. This put together would cause the claws to rachet shut, and pushing on the blue tab would allow the claws to open up.
</aside>
<aside>
This is a closer demonstration of the rachet and pawl mechanism I designed and put together for this claw. The rachet allows the claws to close freely but locks it shut. Then, the blue lever can be flicked, disengaging the pawl and allowing the claw to open.
</aside>
<aside>
The final product Uplift was built using the claw design I created, printed and assembled along with the strap rachet my group members altered to fit our use. The video on the right gives an overview of the project and the 3 easy steps to using the claw: hook one end onto the car grab handle, push the clamp onto the leg and rachet the leg up.
</aside>