The Blackwood Design Awards is now closed for entries. Further formal announcements will be appearing on bespoken shortly so watch this space. In the meantime though, we’ve been speaking to one of the entrants in the ‘Best New Concept’ category, the winner of which will take home thousands of pounds worth of financial and industry support to further develop their idea.

Originally educated at Tohok University in Japan, Professor Shuro Nakajima has been a professor of the department of systems engineering at Wakayama University since April 2015. It is from there that he started the Shuro Nakajima Research Group which has developed the Mover-RT series of intelligent powered wheelchairs that can tackle awkward and urban terrains.

It was his background in engineering that put Shuro Nakajima in situations where he could see the accessibility problems faced by so many:

“Before becoming a professor at a university, I worked at a railway company as an engineer and I saw many scenes where wheelchair users could not move independently because it was necessary for staff to put the ramps between a train and the platform. This means that wheelchair users do not have the independence to move around because they need someone’s assistance. I believe that technology should solve and ease that kind of problem.”

The Blackwood Design Awards has attracted some very unusual and thought provoking concepts in the past, and this is surely one of them. The PType WA is the latest version of a concept wheelchair which can tackle everyday obstacles that limit a wheelchair user’s independence. We’re talking about things like pavement edges, a couple steps, uneven surfaces, etc…

The PType WA wheelchair, which is Professor Nakajima’s official entry in the BDA, performed very well at the Cybathlon games in Zurich winning fourth place in its category. This success prompted Professor Nakajima to seek further challenges and recognition for his design.

“The Blackwood Design Awards is a world class competition for helpful and useful devices for all people. My motivations perfectly fit to it. Our technology is open to everyone in the world, but we cannot introduce it to them all over the world. Our entry in the BDA is to broaden the opportunities to let our device be known in the world. “

I could go on at length about the technical specifications of the PType WA wheelchair, but better yet, you can see it in action below….

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What do you think of Shuro Nakajima's design? What questions do you have about the PType WA wheelchair? Post your questions in the comments section below...

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