Students develop state-of-the-art wheelchair racing glove

 

Like the best coaches and athletes, mechanical engineering senior Sid Madhubalan and recent ME graduate Steven Morse spent hours studying practice film. However, the pair was not analyzing plays or game plans. They were studying how Paralympic track athletes moved and how to improve their performance through innovative racing gloves.

 

The project stretched for almost a year. They began working on it for fun and eventually turned it into an independent study project in the fall of 2016 with their advisor, Bruce Flachsbart, adjunct assistant professor and lecturer in MechSE. 

 

Madhubalan and Morse noticed that the existing racing gloves on the market were only accessible to highly skilled athletes and did not always support the widely varied injuries of people in the sport. They were expensive and there was not a lot of research done on their capabilities. 

 

They began by 3D printing various parts and testing different types of rubber. This allowed the gloves to be manufactured affordably and custom-designed for individual athletes—allowing both novice and skilled competitors to access quality racing gloves.  

 

They then had athletes use their prototypes in training and provide feedback about comfort and ease of use. They also worked with athletes at the university’s U.S. Paralympic Training Site as well as local military veterans. 

 

“We noticed that some people really didn’t have the same range of motion and were using different surfaces of the glove,” Morse said. “We made sure that people with a variety of injuries could push with this glove as well, so that it’s more universal.” 

 

They used slow-motion film analysis to look at how the athletes were pushing on the rim of their chairs as well as their general form. 

 

“The swing of a wheelchair is as refined as a golf swing or a baseball swing,” Madhubalan said. “What we wanted to do is make the glove a little bit bigger and extend it so that the stroke is natural for people who are just picking up the sport.” 

 

After multiple iterations of the glove, the pair used a silicone mold and a dampening foam similar to that used in football helmets. The shape developed to include a surface that would give the racers a “sweet spot” of the glove to push off of, had speed and weight advantages, increased comfort, and reduced wrist injuries. 

 

Madhubalan and Morse gave the results of their project to the University of Illinois racing team to share with the racing community.