GM: Armest for Accessibility

Square

Spring 2017 Project Description

(Integrated Product Design Development)

GM Supported Project

With the development of autonomous vehicle technologies, we are seeing an increase in opportunities for newly mobilized “drivers”. Now, without the need of manual operation of the vehicle, a large subset of people who could not previously drive a motor vehicle now can, opening a large market for vehicles to accommodate this limited mobility market. Our project, sponsored by General Motors, aims to cater to this market, offering extended features over traditional car seats to allow those with limited mobility to fully utilize their newly autonomous vehicles. We hope our redesign of the seat makes the experience of riding in a car more comfortable and seamless for those that have once been considered “immobile.”

User Interview Quotes

“Controls are hard to reach”

“Pivoting to get in to a seat is difficult”

“I need to hold onto something while I get into the car. Otherwise, it’s too hard.”

“The car is so high, I can hardly reach to get my behind in… It takes so much effort just to get into”

3D CAD and Low-fidelity Prototype

             

Posters

Spring 2017 GM Team members

Ally Belinski, Jordan Francis, Christopher Nguyen, Adam Bao, Josephine Wu