Without fail, each time a costume is revealed to a Magic Wheelchair kiddo, the lives of everyone involved are significantly impacted. It's no surprise, I suppose, because the costume represents so much: a community of people united by a mission of epic inclusion; a team of makers with a passion to positively impact the life of a child; a family's hope to see their child experience incredible joy, and above all, the manifestation of a child's dream.
A build always starts with a chat with the kiddo, who tells us what they've imagined for their epic costume. This time around, it was a transforming Pterodactyl!
The team got right to work designing in xDesign. @AH established the overall design aesthetic.
Then different members of the team took the lead on refining and then fabricating different sections.
@AH made the beak and accompanying 4-bar linkage to articulate it.
@DD designed the arm. It rotates through a 60 degree angle while simultaneously telescoping in and out.
@CO designed the wings. Their frame is made up of laser cut 1/8" plywood and 3D Printed parts. The outer skins are lightweight EVA foam painted to look like metal panels.
I designed the frame and the powertrain. Check out my previous post to learn more about the frame:
I also modeled a custom pulley/sprocket to use with the bead chain we bought and used standard gears to increase the torque from the stepper motor.
@YL designed the circuitry and coded the Arduino we used to make the transformation a reality. She added limit switches to ensure the system would stop where expected and never lose sense of which direction it should move.
@GE designed and coded the other half of our electronics, giving the costume robotic transforming sounds and a voice changer. He also made a compact housing for everything that provided a dashboard of fun for our kiddo to enjoy!
@DL built the rocket boosters and painted almost everything on the costume
@ML figured out how to split the massive shins into 3D printable pieces as well as how to magnetically mount them to the costume for quick removal when accessing the hidden speaker and battery
After months of work, the team delivered our most epic costume yet, and our kiddo, Adrian, was gob smacked, claiming it was the "best day of his life".
...and that's why everyone on the team does what we do!
If you'd like to learn more about the build, be sure to check out this video:
