There is a glaring need for low cost manual wheelchairs that withstands daily use trauma, are light enough to transport and still remain rolling. This proposal follows a successful Phase I in which the 26 pound merlinchair, a glass filled nylon prototype, passed the double drum and curb drop ANSI fatigue durability tests. Turbo has assembled a strong team in plastics, medical devices, wheelchair and computer technology with broad base knowledge, cross over experience and a solid track record for producing products. In Phase II we will: design and fabricate preproduction tooling, develop molding processes, assemble and test preproduction wheelchairs. Diverse users will ride, and caretakers will push the post Phase I modified prototype chairs and evaluate them. From user reports SFSU will guide further refinements. We expect at least two separate chair configurations to result. Contract molding, in house assembly, testing and more evaluation by the users/caretakers group will provide data for final design parameter& TWC will fabricate 200 preproduction chairs for Phase III institutional and user distribution and for attracting capital necessaiy for producing Merlinchairs. Users and advocates have begged for chairs with MerlinChairs' attributes. TWC anticipate that Merlinchair will be widely used and accepted.
The North American wheelchair market exceeds $650 million in annual sales. Manual chairs account for just under one-half the dollar volume. In phase III TURBO Wheelchair will capture approximately 6-10% ($20-32.5million) of the manual chair market within 5years on the basis of a durable, folding solid seat, affordable engineering resin based product.
