Mate, have you ever self-propelled (sat in and pushed yourself with your hands) a manual wheelchair?

Even the super-light titanium ones (only available to those with £4K+ to spunk every 5 or so years) are pretty hard work to get to go up any significant slope - and said superlight chairs are also only really suitable for extremely physically fit people as they have so little supportive structure in them.

Given that the NHS won't give a wheelchair user a powerchair unless they are totally unable to propel a manual wheelchair outdoors, that means that there are a lot of a) not very strong people in b) bulky, heavy chairs out there. With no help to push them cos social care's been cut to ribbons.

I didn't get given an NHS powerchair until I was most of the way to being functionally quadriplegic... and until that point I had all of 2 hours of care support a day.

Trust me, the long ramps are absolutely needed, and serve a critical purpose. Spirals and other curves are phenomenally hard work because you're then pushing up a wonky surface - and going down a steepish one (by which I mean more than about 1 in 20) would be downright dangerous. Manual wheelchairs generally only have 'on or off' brakes so you can only slow yourself down by palm against wheel. Ouch. Many many layers of skin lost in those days - you can buy special gloves (for £20 a pair no less) but they wear through fast and still heat up alarmingly on a long steep slope.

Zig zags can work but the way that you'd need flat platforms at every bend would make it pretty bulky, I think. Can't safely corner on a slope.

Cheers.

I've just seen that thread.... and er, yes, although it does seem a little cruel!

Good luck

Ah but it's fixable!

Just put a bar through the centre of each tread and link them all with a sprocket at the end with a chain drive. When you have a wheelchair user, just tilt the foot plates until they are all flat and now you have one huge ramp

I saw it on James Bond so it must work

Nice one intrepid hopefully you are set for sail

The final thing looked much better!

I won't say how I really feel about it just in case the tutor reads PH... Ok, it's unlikely, but I want to get some marks rather than none...

Brilliant.

Ooo...

Well just got my results back yesterday and I'm graduating with the magical 2:1, so I'm properly chuffed with that! Decided that I wanted to bank what I've got rather than do the undergrad masters, so I should be starting an MSc in September with any luck!

Industry is on it's arse though. It might have picked up in a year and if it hasn't at least he's better qualified than next years grads???

I was chatting to mate last night who is a director at one of the bigger civils and it really does seem to be doom and gloom at the moment. A lot was riding on the proposed nuc projects but they've all slowed right down to barely a trickle.