DEVELOPMENT OF A SKATEBOARD FOR A PHYSICALLY DISABLED CHILD

The aim of this paper is to present the development of a skateboard for a physically disabled child. The design presented in this study was motivated by an existing request of a local school that wanted to provide one of its students, a lower-limb amputee, with a more efficient method of transportation. Therefore, the design of an adapted skateboard, that values a healthy posture and an alternative propulsion system was proposed. For the product design, a user-centered methodology was applied based on the Project Development Orientation Guide. This methodology is divided in 8 stages and starts at the market opportunities and ends in the product testing. Hence, strategies of research and idea generation, such as articles and patents research, questionnaires, morphological matrix and SCAMPER tool, were used to develop a solution with a 3D model. With the model, a static simulation was performed through a finite element analysis method to validate the design and define the product's dimension. The development of a product focused on the real needs of the user was highly approved. However, the user centered method presents significant challenges, especially dealing with a child and considering ethical standards in scientific research. The adapted skateboard represents a life quality improvement for the user and needs to be prototyped and tested for validation of the presented solution.