13 ms·

Powerchair: A dad hacks a wheelchair for his disabled 2-year-old son

265 points by Aissen 13y ago

itry 13y ago
Pure Love
bbayer 13y ago
I really burst into tears when I first saw it. This is really fascinating how a dad worked hard to make his child every day life easier. I can understand his effort as father of disabled child and very proud of achievement he made. It is hard to believe how hard to reach resources for a disabled child. Some European countries has very good regulations about supporting disabled children thus equipment is very expensive. It is impossible to effort for families with low income and social benefits which are provided especially from government agencies is a must.
- nova 13y ago
  > Some European countries has very good regulations about supporting disabled children thus equipment is very expensive. Regulations, at least the well intentioned ones, try to avoid accidents from ill-designed products. The downside is expensive or never made technology needed by a small number of patients. After all, dead or injured children due to faulty machinery are very noticeable, whereas unassisted ones (because the technology doesn't exist) is just "a fact of life", and invisible to most (except their parents). "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen", again. Same with medicines. We need a two-tier system: 1) certified and expensive, and 2) best-effort and on your own, but cheap. (And don't let me get started on patents)
ibsathish 13y ago
Epitome of Father-Child relationship. Moved to tears. Thanks for sharing.
DanBC 13y ago
Amazing write up. It does make me a bit grumpy to see things like SnapChat being offered $3bn, but nothing like this ever getting that kind of funding. That's a lot of engineering and manufacturing that isn't being done. Even the boy with the formula one arm had to raise funds himself. (With help, but no funding, from Mercedes. But the engineering they gave is very cool.) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/8700621/F1-fan-receives-bionic-hand-from-Mercedes-team.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/87006...
- aram 13y ago
  I completely agree; it's the same thing as with entertainment/sports industry. Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have much real value. Thanks for sharing the link.
  - elmuchoprez 13y ago
    "Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have any real value." Serious question: Do you consider entertainment to have a real value for society?
    - pradocchia 13y ago
      People would make their own entertainment if sports and Hollywood were not available: games, stories, conversation, crafts, and so on. Our lives might even be a bit richer for it. And in that sense, the entertainment industry captures value that we would be making anyhow. Yes their entertainment is better somehow, better in the sense that people will pay for it, so this is the bottom-line "better", inclusive of demand generators (eg, movie trailers, team rivalries, etc), and not necessarily a general-welfare "better". You might even argue that this is welfare-capture: once you have seen the movie trailer (for free), or acquired team-loyalty (for free), your welfare becomes dependent on seeing what happens (not free). My son saw a trailer for WALL-E last night. Now he wants to see it. Having seen it, will his net welfare have increased? I don't know. He seems happy enough with his blocks and pencils and such.
      - aaronem 13y ago
        That is, in the sense in which cocaine is "better" than caffeine.
      - randomdata 13y ago
        > People would make their own entertainment if sports and Hollywood were not available I'm afraid I disagree with you. I notice even when getting together with a group of friends to play games, there always tends to be someone who is happy to just sit back and watch the games take place. Some will make the entertainment and others will want to watch. It seems to be basic human nature; professional sports and Hollywood have just figured out how to make money from that.
Kliment 13y ago
Just a random offer, I don't mean to hijack the thread - I do electronics and robotics design for a living. I will happily help anyone who has a need like this for cost of materials or less, the result will be open source hardware. If you or someone you know could use help with a similar project, contact me at kliment at 0xfb.com or on IRC (I'm Kliment on the freenode network).
- mmmaaaxxx 13y ago
  I also do electronics for a living and dabble in robotics at the local hackerspace. Would love to work on an open-source project like this. Let me now if you get something going. Max at mmmaaa.xxx
- stbtrax 13y ago
  From the comments of the father's blog there seems to be an organization for pairing up people with skills to people with needs: http://www.tetrasociety.org/ http://www.tetrasociety.org/
  - Kliment 13y ago
    Thanks, though it appears to be North America only, and I'm in Europe.
- mctx 13y ago
  I'd love to help out too (mechatronics eng) - email in profile. I'm in Perth, Australia
el_shayan 13y ago
Just imagine what a Gene Hacker Dad can do...
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
This is where the value of Stem educations come in. 50 years ago you could pick up enough mechanics to fix your car, enough electronics as a hobbyist. today you need to start at 14 building / making at school like we did in woodcraft and metalwork lessons - otherwise when you are a dad and need those making skills, they just aren't there but like everyone else on the thread - massive kudos - that's what dads are for.
noonespecial 13y ago
In case you don't know what "MAX" is: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/71544521BDE34FFB86256FCF005F4FB6 http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/71544521BDE34FFB86256... Its something I'd like really like to see an open source version of make it into the Arduino universe.
pt 13y ago
I would like to contribute money for Alejandro (as I do not have the hacking ability/skills to contribute anything meaningful for the tech). Is there a way to contribute money for Alejandro and his dad?
brianmcdonough 13y ago
At one point in the video he seemed to be looking at the camera, saying perhaps, thanks for being an awesome dad. BTW, I think the reason why there's so much talk about entertainment in the comments is because people feel guilty for pursuing simple pleasure when you have pursued something so noble by comparison. What they don't know is how much satisfaction you must have derived from this project. You have achieved something not many of us have, something noble and satisfying. There should be a website for noble stories like yours, but I'm afraid there wouldn't be enough content ;) Thank you for sharing your inspiring story.

265 points by Aissen 13y ago

itry 13y ago

Pure Love

I really burst into tears when I first saw it. This is really fascinating how a dad worked hard to make his child every day life easier. I can understand his effort as father of disabled child and very proud of achievement he made. It is hard to believe how hard to reach resources for a disabled child. Some European countries has very good regulations about supporting disabled children thus equipment is very expensive. It is impossible to effort for families with low income and social benefits which are provided especially from government agencies is a must.

nova 13y ago
> Some European countries has very good regulations about supporting disabled children thus equipment is very expensive. Regulations, at least the well intentioned ones, try to avoid accidents from ill-designed products. The downside is expensive or never made technology needed by a small number of patients. After all, dead or injured children due to faulty machinery are very noticeable, whereas unassisted ones (because the technology doesn't exist) is just "a fact of life", and invisible to most (except their parents). "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen", again. Same with medicines. We need a two-tier system: 1) certified and expensive, and 2) best-effort and on your own, but cheap. (And don't let me get started on patents)

ibsathish 13y ago

Epitome of Father-Child relationship. Moved to tears. Thanks for sharing.

DanBC 13y ago

Amazing write up. It does make me a bit grumpy to see things like SnapChat being offered $3bn, but nothing like this ever getting that kind of funding. That's a lot of engineering and manufacturing that isn't being done. Even the boy with the formula one arm had to raise funds himself. (With help, but no funding, from Mercedes. But the engineering they gave is very cool.) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/8700621/F1-fan-receives-bionic-hand-from-Mercedes-team.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/87006...

aram 13y ago
I completely agree; it's the same thing as with entertainment/sports industry. Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have much real value. Thanks for sharing the link.
- elmuchoprez 13y ago
  "Football/basketball players are paid obscene amounts of money, while what they do does not have any real value." Serious question: Do you consider entertainment to have a real value for society?
  - pradocchia 13y ago
    People would make their own entertainment if sports and Hollywood were not available: games, stories, conversation, crafts, and so on. Our lives might even be a bit richer for it. And in that sense, the entertainment industry captures value that we would be making anyhow. Yes their entertainment is better somehow, better in the sense that people will pay for it, so this is the bottom-line "better", inclusive of demand generators (eg, movie trailers, team rivalries, etc), and not necessarily a general-welfare "better". You might even argue that this is welfare-capture: once you have seen the movie trailer (for free), or acquired team-loyalty (for free), your welfare becomes dependent on seeing what happens (not free). My son saw a trailer for WALL-E last night. Now he wants to see it. Having seen it, will his net welfare have increased? I don't know. He seems happy enough with his blocks and pencils and such.
    - aaronem 13y ago
      That is, in the sense in which cocaine is "better" than caffeine.
    - randomdata 13y ago
      > People would make their own entertainment if sports and Hollywood were not available I'm afraid I disagree with you. I notice even when getting together with a group of friends to play games, there always tends to be someone who is happy to just sit back and watch the games take place. Some will make the entertainment and others will want to watch. It seems to be basic human nature; professional sports and Hollywood have just figured out how to make money from that.

Kliment 13y ago

Just a random offer, I don't mean to hijack the thread - I do electronics and robotics design for a living. I will happily help anyone who has a need like this for cost of materials or less, the result will be open source hardware. If you or someone you know could use help with a similar project, contact me at kliment at 0xfb.com or on IRC (I'm Kliment on the freenode network).

mmmaaaxxx 13y ago
I also do electronics for a living and dabble in robotics at the local hackerspace. Would love to work on an open-source project like this. Let me now if you get something going. Max at mmmaaa.xxx
stbtrax 13y ago
From the comments of the father's blog there seems to be an organization for pairing up people with skills to people with needs: http://www.tetrasociety.org/ http://www.tetrasociety.org/
- Kliment 13y ago
  Thanks, though it appears to be North America only, and I'm in Europe.
mctx 13y ago
I'd love to help out too (mechatronics eng) - email in profile. I'm in Perth, Australia

el_shayan 13y ago

Just imagine what a Gene Hacker Dad can do...

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

This is where the value of Stem educations come in. 50 years ago you could pick up enough mechanics to fix your car, enough electronics as a hobbyist. today you need to start at 14 building / making at school like we did in woodcraft and metalwork lessons - otherwise when you are a dad and need those making skills, they just aren't there but like everyone else on the thread - massive kudos - that's what dads are for.

noonespecial 13y ago

In case you don't know what "MAX" is: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/71544521BDE34FFB86256FCF005F4FB6 http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/71544521BDE34FFB86256... Its something I'd like really like to see an open source version of make it into the Arduino universe.

pt 13y ago

I would like to contribute money for Alejandro (as I do not have the hacking ability/skills to contribute anything meaningful for the tech). Is there a way to contribute money for Alejandro and his dad?

brianmcdonough 13y ago

At one point in the video he seemed to be looking at the camera, saying perhaps, thanks for being an awesome dad. BTW, I think the reason why there's so much talk about entertainment in the comments is because people feel guilty for pursuing simple pleasure when you have pursued something so noble by comparison. What they don't know is how much satisfaction you must have derived from this project. You have achieved something not many of us have, something noble and satisfying. There should be a website for noble stories like yours, but I'm afraid there wouldn't be enough content ;) Thank you for sharing your inspiring story.