MagniClaw Locks Wheelchairs into Place

Responding to a call from a former Syracuse University (SU) student and football player, a team of current SU students set out to design a safer solution for wheelchair users traveling in moving vehicles. The resulting invention, dubbed the MagniClaw, was designed and built this past summer during Invent@SU, a six-week inventor program for students in SU's College of Engineering and Computer Science.  

“It’s like a hackathon,” said Alex Deyhim, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at SU and director of the Invent@SU program. Founded in 2017, the Invent@SU program brings multi-disciplinary student teams together to research and invent a solution that solves a problem or otherwise improves lives. At the end of the program, the teams pitch their ideas to a jury in a competition for prizes, similar to the popular show, Shark Tank. The 2024 program included 30 students split into eight different multidisciplinary teams.  

“If you look at the MagniClaw [team], there were different majors, medical engineering, biomedical, mechanical, aerospace,” Deyhim said. The team included Davis Hood, ’26 (electrical engineering), Jennifer Mason, ’26 (mechanical engineering), Matthew Pinto, ’27 (biomedical engineering), and Carter Thompson, ’26 (aerospace engineering), and set out to solve a problem identified close to home. 

The problem 

Jim DaRin was looking forward to entering his junior year and returning to the SU football team in the summer of 1977. But an exploding keg at the Miller brewery where he worked left him paralyzed at age 20. He did not return to SU, but remained in the area, building a house in Manlius, marrying, and becoming a dad to two twin girls. 

He maintains his mobile and active lifestyle with the help of a modified vehicle but has long been frustrated by the available options to secure his wheelchair to the driver’s area. Although DaRin uses his hands to manage the steering wheel and throttle, he often felt unsafe when his wheelchair rocked or moved while driving. His existing system relied on a pin on the wheelchair, which often caught on things it shouldn’t or dragged along the pavement. DaRin reached out to his lift supplier and other companies providing vehicle modification services for an alternative to no avail. 

“No solution exists in the market, so he reached out to the College of Engineering,” said Deyhim, who felt Invent@SU was the perfect opportunity to help DaRin. It also helps the students, typically second- or third-year engineering students, understand everything involved with becoming an inventor.  

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“There's a real problem, that's really important, that hasn't been solved,” Deyhim said. “They do a patent search and then they do customer discovery [to determine if] there is a need for this invention. And once they get a green light in all these areas, then they roll their sleeves up and get to work,” Deyhim said.  

The solution 

After Deyhim and the students met with DaRin, the students got to work. After several design iterations, the team landed on a system that uses a lightweight bar attachment with a docking mechanism and electromagnet. The attachment can easily be connected to a wide variety of manual wheelchairs via two small clamps. It can then be connected to the docking frame and is secured in place by a steel plate that interacts with the electromagnet. The electromagnet can support up to 600 pounds and is turned on or off by a Bluetooth-enabled remote.  

The students employed 3D printing to quickly create some of the prototype components during the program’s compressed six-week time frame. Though likely not an ideal material for potential commercial production, the 3D printed components proved the prototype really does work. “That's the beauty of it,” Deyhim said. 

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After presenting their work to a panel of 14 judges, the MagniClaw team tied for second place, walking away with a cash prize of $1,200. 

The implications could be tremendous for DaRin and millions of other wheelchair users. Now, the team is in the process of taking their work to the next level and raising money to develop an advanced prototype, define patents, and explore how to commercialize the licenses, Deyhim explained.  

In addition to bringing students together to solve engineering challenges with the support of faculty, the Invent@SU program also invites a variety of guest speakers to contribute to the six-week program. Experts on sustainability, smart pricing strategies, intellectual property, and others with valuable insights on the many different aspects of inventing a device and starting a business present throughout the program.  

Those broad perspectives, along with the ability to work in multidisciplinary environments, are just as important as achieving technical competence, Deyhim said.  

“[Students] also have to have the right soft skills. How do you deal with conflict resolution? How do you work in a team?” he added. “The leadership team building is so important for engineers when they go to industries, to have those skills in their back pocket, because it really helps them differentiate themselves.” 

Nancy Kristof is a technology writer in Denver.