Project Description:
StairSupport: a new and innovative way for the elderly and people with limited mobility to get up and down the stairs. Our team started this project with one goal, to help people get up and down the stairs. One of the main issues facing the elderly as they age is that it becomes harder to go up and down the stairs. The StairSupport offers this demographic an affordable, portable, and sturdy design that would be compatible with most railings. Other devices that help the elderly to move up and down the stairs are permanent, costly, and heavy. This means that although it might work in their home, that is the only case in which they can use it. Our main design goal was to make the StairSupport portable and more affordable for those facing these challenges. We have accomplished this goal by making an almost universal railing attachment for our design, as well as a purely mechanical system that does not rely on electronic components that would add to the cost and maintenance over the lifecycle of our product. Simply put, StairSupport offers a cost effective and elegant solution so that the elderly and people with mobility issues can take the system with them and walk up the stairs wherever life may take them.
