Joost Roels and Pieterjan De Putter, Electromechanical Engineering students at Group T, received the CERA Award for their design of a system to secure wheelchairs in vehicles on September 16, 2009.
Joost Roels and Pieterjan De Putter, winners of the 2009 CERA Award. (Photo: Filip Van Loock)
Joost and Pieterjan received the assignment for their master's thesis from the organization Oostrem and completed it under the guidance of supervisor René Boonen. Oostrem had been encountering problems when transporting wheelchair-users for a long time already.
To secure wheelchairs in a safe and user-friendly way in vans was not always obvious. Wheelchairs often lack anchors, their belts are often too short or too long; the van's anchors might be out of reach; or the brakes move awkwardly.
Oostrem had already tried all systems on the market, but none of them really lived up to their needs. Joost and Pieterjan combined the advantages of an excisting system, QRTmax, with their own research using LMS Virtual.Lab software.
The test module they developed turned out to be the safest and most user-friendly: in case of a frontal hit, the survival rate of the wheelchair user had doubled! On top of that, the Group T-students' system was the most affordable. Certainly worth a Cera Award!
The Cera Award rewards the master's thesis of social engineers who set up research to the benefit of a social profit organization. Engineers who devote their innovative and creative skills to real social needs.
15-17 september 2010
Een driedaagse conferentie over computer games, experience design en 'fun'.
Download en lees alles over onze opleidingen en studeren in Leuven
