Before he got hurt in a cycling accident, a man from Windsor, Ont., loved cutting the grass. Before 200
Rob Piper says he loves cutting his grass so much that he thought about starting a business doing it.
But the Windsor, Ontario, man was hurt in a cycling accident about five years ago, and he has been using a wheelchair ever since.
Piper said that he wrote on Facebook about how much he missed it, and the technology program at St. Anne Catholic High School got in touch with him to find a solution.
“I’m so excited,” he said.
“The boys and girls did a wonderful job. Tried it on a few rows, and now I’m ready to cut down the whole neighborhood.”
Mike Costello, who teaches manufacturing and technology at St. Anne, said that he and a group of students looked online for ways to connect a wheelchair and a lawnmower, then started to engineer a few designs and build a few prototypes.
“We thought, ‘We’ll make it out of a metal-based lawnmower,’ but then we found out that you couldn’t buy a metal-based electric lawnmower,” Costello said.
Rob Piper joins Windsor Morning to talk about his new book.
Costello said that they “hacked away” at different ideas on paper until one of them worked.
“So we had to go back to plastic… It wasn’t strong enough to hold up the wheels and the frame… So, we decided to build the frame that would hold the lawnmower up.
Rob can stay in his chair while using the machine, which is an electric lawnmower that hooks up to an aid.
Jake Polewski, who is in the 11th grade, said that making the machine was hard, but it made him feel good.
“Seeing Rob be able to do things for himself and have some independence in his life. I’m sure it makes him feel good.”
Jake said that the first prototype’s wheels were too small, and that Piper’s wheelchair changed during the design process, which changed how he got into it and gave him more padding under his feet.
Piper said that he had to fight back tears the first time he drove the mower.
“On the inside, I was crying, but I didn’t show it. I was so happy and thankful that they helped me.”