Assistive Tricycle

As our senior design project, my team and I were contracted by a member of BYU-I faculty to design an assistive tricycle for her son. Our client's son, Corbin, has physical and mental impairments that prevent him from riding traditional bicycles and tricycles. Our objective was to design and build a tricycle that enabled Corbin to safely ride a tricycle with the aid and supervision of his parents.

In the video above I highlight some modifications we made to an adult tricycle to meet the needs of our client. Please excuse the video quality. The images below further highlight these modifications.

Seat and foot Restraints

To keep Corbin safely restrained, we made a custom seat and pedals with restraints taken from a child's car seat. With minor adjustments, the seat will accommodate him into adulthood.

Additional gear

One objective of the tricycle is to teach Corbin to pedal. We added a second fixed gear next to the original freewheel. As the operator pushes the tricycle the fixed gear will spin the crank, teaching Corbin the motion of pedaling. Once he learns to pedal on his own, the chain can be switched over to the freewheel.

remote steering device

The remote steering device consists of a steering column attached to the frame via u-bolt brackets, two cables, and two pulleys with set screws to secure the cables. A larger diameter pulley in the rear gives the operator a bit of advantage. The handlebars in the front are disengaged to prevent Corbin from fighting the operator.