Tag Archives: trikes

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.

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.

 

Spring Arbor University Enactus Regional Competition 2013

  By AT | May 28, 2013 - 6:08 pm |
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Spring  Arbor University (SAU) has an Enactus chapter on their campus. You can read more about Enactus by clicking this link http://enactus.org/. One of the three projects the SAU students presented at the Regional Competition in Chicago this April was a way to keep the trike project in India sustainable.

In the presentation below you can see the multimedia component of their presentation they showed during competition. The SAU students won first runner up in their division.

WBEZ Global Expo Recap

  By AT | April 16, 2013 - 8:33 pm |
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On April 6, 2013 His Wheels International had a booth at WBEZ’s 6th Annual Global Expo and University of Illinois Chicago. We couldn’t have had such a successful day without the help of our faithful volunteers Stephanie, Daniel and Mark. There were about 3,300 people who visited the expo throughout the day. You can see pictures and read more about the day at Stephanie’s blog.