Students create device to help women live with multiple sclerosis

In 2011, Gilda Heath was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, placing her in a motorized wheelchair. For this reason, Gilda found it more difficult to do simple tasks and so sought help and found engineering students at the University of Victoria willing to help.

So Kim Arklie and Jacquie Moreland, who had already worked on projects together, decided to team up again to create Mobilarm, leading a team of seven biomedical engineering students.

Mobilarm is a device capable of connecting to electric wheelchairs and helping users carry items, including groceries.

These two students worked closely with Gilda, manufacturing companies and healthcare officials on everything from concept to design and final prototype.

This project recently won first place in the Simon Cox Student Design Contest, but more importantly, it fulfilled the goal of helping Gilda gain more independence.

“I am absolutely amazed. It's wonderful how we work together and how professional they were at the end of the project.”- says Heath satisfied with the result.

Story adapted from https://www.cheknews.ca/chek-upside-uvic-students-create-award-winning-d...
https://www.uvic.ca/engineering/home/news/current/2021may-teams-device-f...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmbU-TQbBf4