BYU Students build wheelchairs for children

139

PROVO — Tanner Jensen is the third child of the Jensen family. He and his younger brother Skyler love to play with their siblings and are as energetic as any other children. They both suffer from a rare genetic disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which affects them in many areas of their lives. They can’s walk or even crawl and then need to be in a wheelchair.

Brigham Young University engineering students learned about their story and decided to make the Jensen’s lives easier by building a motorized wheelchair for their capstone project. Every year, senior students need to create a project that test all their knowledege. This team, sponsored by Tim Gunsay and his company, Vegetronix, decided to create a project that they called Open Wheelchair.

Gunsay said he “wanted a very low-cost wheelchair and a light wheelchair, one that a mother could pick up with no problems” and propose it to the students.

These were great news for Esther Jensen, Tanner and Skyler’s mom, who mentioned the project is a huge blessings for so many people, since all the equipment they need for their children gets very expensive.

“It’s just so exciting that BYU wanted to take advantage and make this possibility a reality,” said Jensen.

If you want to check the designs and learn more about the project, visit Open Wheelchair website.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email