Category Archives: partnership

Shine Project, Dodoma Tanzania

  By AT | August 7, 2021 - 6:21 pm | ,
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Good things take time, especially during the season of COVID. Back in early 2019 His Wheels sent 2 trikes back to Dodoma, Tanzania with Dr. Joel Songela.

On June 29, 2021, we at HWI received the following from Dr. Songela, “His Wheels has just given out a trike to Joseph! Remember Joseph?” HWI had learned about Joseph’s need soon after the trike got to Tanzania, but it was just before COVID began.

 

Dr. Songela goes on to write, “The trike was officially handed to Joseph by the District Commissioner.” In the picture below from left to right is Faraja (Dr. Joel Songela’s wife), Dr. Songela, the District Commissioner and the Regional Secretary for the Disabled who put Dr. Songela in contact with Joseph.

After receiving the trike Joseph said, “Now he will be able to get to where he wanted so he could do his business, which collapsed because of his immobility.

“The District Commissioner immediately gave a promise to give Joseph the capital he needed to restart his business. So he ordered the Secretary to see him in a week to collect the money!

“Joseph’s life has been drastically transformed.”

The trike was given away as part of CANA church community Project Shine, where backpacks were given to students and the trike was part of the celebration. See the video below.

Pakistan Accessible Design Contest

  By AT | July 15, 2016 - 7:53 pm | ,
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Our HWI team was honored to have the unique and outstanding opportunity to participate on this Pakistan Contests international judging board for NOWPDP,

The contest received sixty design entries. The NOWPDP team then picked the top ten designs for the international judging board to evaluate. The presentation of each entry was of professional quality and a gift of education and awareness for those with lower limb disabilities and to the hand-cycle world.

This opportunity helped us crystalize our purpose, while combining over 50 years of trike experience in evaluating the ten accessible designs. Our evaluation team consisted of eight members including our design engineer, physical therapist, bicycle mechanic, along with a couple students and Messiah College’s Burkina Faso trike project coordinator.
Congratulations to Taufeeq Elahi Diju Winner reported in Dawn, who had the winning desing, Orbis 3.
Pakwheels. com top 30 NOWPDP cycle designs

Jakarta, Indonesia with MIT D-Lab

  By AT | January 16, 2016 - 5:05 pm | ,
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The New Year began with a His Wheels trike traveling to Jakarta, Indonesia with a team from the MIT D-Lab. Matt McCambridge, the MIT faculty member leading the trip was taking an HWI trike along with Free Wheelchair Missions Gen 4 to test them side by side. Matt wrote the initial trike test guidelines for a comparative trike study (2013-2014) conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia. We look forward to hearing the follow-up from MIT.

Nigeria

  By AT | May 22, 2015 - 6:30 pm | ,
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On May 9, 2015 Kevin Nikolich, our His Wheels International design engineer met with Ayuba Gufwan in Grand Rapids Michigan. Ayuba is from Nigeria and part of Beautiful Gates/Wheelchairs for Nigeria. The purpose of the meeting was to deliver a HWI trike and discuss how HWI could partner with Wheelchairs for Nigeria, assisting with trike design related issues.

Alice was not able to attend the meeting but talked with Ayuba. His opening greeting was, “Thanks for your vision.” Truth be told, Ayuba was the one who inspired the HWI trike Di-Vision.

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Senior Capstone Project Presentation 2015

  By AT | April 17, 2015 - 9:19 pm | , ,
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Today Kevin and Alice went to Olivet Nazarene University. There we heard the final presentation from our HWI Senior Design Team, which consisted of 3 mechanical engineer students: Loren, David and Alex. For their Senior Capstone Project they were given the challenge of coming up with cargo option for the His Wheels International Dual Offset Tube Trike. When they went to prototype the cargo design they received help from Sam, a 2nd year student. Great Job Loren, David and Alex on your exceptional work.
Kevin, His Wheels Design Engineer is driving. Alice, His Wheels Executive Director is riding in the cargo trailer. Standing from left to right is David, Sam, Alex, Loren.

Kevin, His Wheels Design Engineer is driving. Alice, His Wheels Executive Director is riding in the cargo trailer. Standing from left to right is David, Sam, Alex, Loren.

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Olivet Nazarene University’s 2015 Senior Design Engineering Team: Loren driving, Alex on extra seat option and David in the Cargo trailer.
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Trike, passenger seat, and Cargo Trailer from behind

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Cargo Trailer with a curved back handle. When the trailer is unhitched from the trike it can be used as a wheelbarrow.

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Cargo Hitch, back seat, and black under seat carrying area.

 

Cutie is Off to Another University

  By AT | August 16, 2013 - 10:58 pm | ,
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Cutie is the nickname we’ve given our compact trike. Today Kevin, Alice and Cutie went for a meeting at Olivet Nazarene University (ONU) in Bourbannais, IL. We met with two Mechanical Engineering Faculty members about having 3 senior engineering students use the trike for a senior project.The idea is to look at neuro-engineering and how a quadriplegic could maneuver a trike by EEG brain wave activities.

We dropped Cutie off and here is Cutie’s new home and new roommates

It’s possible that Cutie will outsmart any of us at HWI before the year is over if the trike hangs out with this team. We are excited to see the road Cutie takes at ONU. Kevin and Alice will return the 2nd week of September to meet with students and to answer any questions they might have at the time.

God is up to something and we at HWI are along for the ride.

Spring Arbor University & HWI Brainstorm Session

  By AT | June 28, 2013 - 11:22 pm | , ,
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On Monday June 24th Kevin and Alice left home at 5AM and drove 4 hours to Spring Arbor University (SAU). There we met with old and new friends. One of the old friends was Carla, Alice coast-to-coast cycling leader from 1977. It only took us 2 hours for 5 of us to travel the world through our brainstorming efforts. Pray with us as we watch our university trike consortium grow. (more…)

Bikes for Sunshine Gospel Ministries

  By AT | June 28, 2013 - 11:06 pm | , ,
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Last Tuesday Shawn came out to HWI headquarters from Sunshine Gospel Ministries on the south side of Chicago. We have partnered with Sunshine for several years. We loaded 26 bikes into this trailer and 16 bikes into this truck bed.

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Trike Stress Testing

  By AT | June 28, 2013 - 10:06 pm | ,
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Today we did some potentially destructive testing on a DOTT trike frame. (Note that all of these tests were performed without the additional strength of a “Haiti Brace” installed. The Haiti brace is an extra support welded into the frame below the seat that helps to strengthen the trike frame. All current HWI trikes use this brace.)

These tests at HWI were done in parallel with the Solidworks computer stress analysis reports compiled by the students at Messiah College.

The intention was to provide us with a feel, both practically and theoretically for how strong the design was, and to help identify any weaknesses in the design. Unfortunately, we ran out of weight for the test as we approached 900 pounds. We really did not expect to get that far.

Our future tests will involve actually overloading the trike to see what parts do fail first.

As well as providing valuable theoretical analysis of the trike design, the students at Messiah College were able to identify the likelihood that most of our trike frame would still be strong enough even if we used a slightly smaller diameter of tubing. Thanks again to the students and staff at Messiah College for their work and suggestions.