Before I elaborate on the amazing, exciting news we have, here's a quick update: Daniel and I have decided to finish up our arm and leg prototypes before we move on to our wheelchair. However, the prosthetics only have minor details we need to sort out, and it shouldn't take more than a few days. Once we have all our ducks in a row, we'll get our rebar at the end of the week and finally tackle our wheelchair prototype. 
      And.... drum roll please? Daniel and I need a project to work on after we finish our wheelchair and we read an article about "WeeBot," (Today in OT) a robot that helps babies who are developmentally challenged learn how to walk. Basically, a baby sits on a robot that acts like a Wee fit board, and when they lean in the direction they want to go, the robot moves them in that direction. So for babies that can't learn how to crawl, this is a huge development!! It already has inspiring results, and Daniel and I have decided for our next project, we want to make one! I'm in raptures because I love kids and I want to go into pediatrics, and Daniel has been dealing with robots all year on the robotics team. We'll let you know how it goes, but right now, we're pretty excited!

 
We have been updating the website. We will get the rebar Sunday. Right now we are super busy with Robotics and tennis Tryouts, we haven't been able to find the time!
 
Good news! Daniel and I have finally come up with a solution to our caster problem: rebar! For those of you who don't know, rebar is an extremely accessible, dirt cheap, building material, found everywhere in third world countries. Rebar is long and skinny, and very durable, and it comes in plenty of sizes. Daniel and I were able to find 1/2" X 48" at Lowe's for a mere $2.98. Our casters need to fit in a 5/8" hole, so we think the rebar will fit perfectly. Sometime this week we'll go to Lowe's and then we can begin fitting the wheels on our wheelchair again. Hurrah! Another challenge overcome!
 
Because wheelchairs need to turn, duh!, casters of some sort are required for front wheels. We plan on making our own casters by using the wheels that came with the hand truck. The trick is finding the metal rod we need to be able to make the axle. In the DR I watched workers bend rebar with a simple jig and metal pipe. I hope we can use this same process to make the casters for our hand truck wheelchair. Our current plan is to wrap tape around the rebar to increase the diameter to fit the bearings in the wheel and the ID of the hand truck pipe. I will include CAD drawings of this plan later. It is difficult to find rebar. Will search Lowes and Family Farm and Home.