A new wheelchair has been getting a huge amount of attention across the world lately. The Scalevo started out as a “focus project” for a group of mechanical engineering students but has gone on to become arguably an important advance in disabled accessibility. 

A group of ten students from the ETH Zurich were asked to build a marketable prototype which is how the concept first came about but the original plan was something entirely different altogether.

Beni Winter, who first came up with the concept, initially wanted to build a robot capable of climbing stairs while filming, however, after a couple of meetings with Professor Sigwart, he decided that a better idea would be to build a wheelchair using the same characteristics. With this new goal in mind, they had ten months to achieve it. To aid them in this project they also received help from industrial designers.

The team started building a prototype and testing several options to make it work with particular consideration paid to: balance, grip, tracks and user friendliness, with the chair designed to be light weight and reliable. Following several different prototypes, they opted for a combined system of wheels and tracks: the wheelchair would balance on two big wheels on the ground and, for the stairs, it would use two rubber tracks hidden on the bottom of chair. This characteristic is something totally new, since the majority always have four wheels, such as the discontinued iBot or the Topchair. According to its creator, the Scalevo is also lighter and faster than other advanced powerchairs. Nonetheless they are currently working to improve its performance. 

If we focus on the advantages, Scalevo provides autonomy to the user as it doesn’t require any external help at all and can be handled independently at all times by the user. 

It’s still undergoing tests but so far the results are very promising with no serious safety issues being flagged up.

For now the team is still waiting for see what will happen with their design as they have several sponsors but still need support from manufacturers if it is ever to reach mass production. And if someone is wondering about the price, Scalevo might not be affordable to everyone, at least to begin with. Such is the quality and price of the materials needed to build it, but then again, everything will depend on supply and demand so we will still have to wait and see.

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