EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purchase of modes of transportation (cars, motorcycles, bicycles, skateboards, etc.) is highly anticipated and, once achieved, celebrated as life-enhancing. The one notable exception is wheelchairs. Their acquisition is taken to signify, instead, a concession to aging, disease, injury, and lowered status. While the freedom that the device affords is welcomed by persons with an ambulatory disability (PWAD), the aesthetics of the equipment have an external negative affect on social integration and acceptance. This is because the medical model, which perceives PWAD in terms of defects that must be alleviated, pervades the current design, production, and consumption of wheelchairs. The technology expresses a master status, that of compromised health, not of the individuality and vitality of the end user. This project seeks to flip that signification by creating devices that transform the wheelchair ambiance with play, expressiveness, style, and professionalism. Potentially, 10,225,155 people in the United States will benefit.

Results: included in the first cut of 800 applications, final rank of the application was 75 out of the 800 applications.