ENGS 21, or Introduction To Engineering, is a class where students are given a theme, from which they must take a product from conception to market delivery. Assigned with the theme "Engineering Improved Quality of Life", my team and I noticed that wheelchair users in areas with snowfall had a greater difficulty with mobility over short but key distances. There was simply no solution on the market which cheaply and effectively allowed users to bridge the gap between their homes/work and their vehicles. After creating many prototypes, we designed an over-the-wheel tire-cover design with an expanded PVC material for increased traction, an effective and cheap solution to the problem.
Awards: Phillip R. Jackson Engineering Sciences Prize, Citation in ENGS 21, China Patent No. 201621471259.5, filed December 29, 2016, and issued June 15, 2017, Currently patent pending in United States. We are currently in the process of applying to the Lemelson-MIT Student price for funding to pursue IceTrax further.
