Community Rowing Inc.: Adaptive Rowing Technology Project

Adaptive Rowing 

Adaptive Rowing: Rowing for people who have physical disabilities, people with visual and hearing impairments, and people with intellectual disabilities

International Rowing Federation: FISA

http://www.worldrowing.com/news/adaptive-rowers-open-the-munich-world-rowing-cup

Adaptive Rowing has been a breakthrough for 

The Three Categories for Adaptive Rowing 

defined by FISA (International Rowing Federation)

1. LTA (Legs, trunk, arms)
1. Use of at least one leg, trunk, and arms 
1. Visual impairment,  intellectual disabilities
2. Standard boat with sliding seat
2. TA (Trunk and Arms)
1. Functional use of trunk and arms but required a fixed set due to weakened lower limbs
1. Fixed seat
2. leg amputations
3. AS (Arms and shoulders)
1. Minimal or not trunk function
2. Fixed seat and rower is strapped at upper chest level to only allow shoulder and arm movements + back support to balance in seat

     Adaptive Rowing technology

This video shows the front-rower system and 2 step Transfer Board!

• 2 Step Transfer Board: 
  • 2 Step Transfer Board is attached to the riser and extends out over the gunwales of the boar, stabilizing it during the boarding process. This product helps wheelchair riders to transfer themselves to the boat much more easily.
  • The only problem is, who will carry the transfer board to the boat? (hinders independence of the adaptive rower)
• FrontRower Rowing System : 
  A drop-in rig designed for use in touring type rowboats and canoes. The rig includes frame, seat, and oars. It is ergonomically designed; it is designed to minimize physical effort and discomfit, and maximize efficiency and enjoyment. The rower travel facing forward in this system, so the rowers does not need to twist around to see where the rowers going. The system has a big comfortable seat with an adjustable reclining backrest. The rower can row with different combinations of the rower's body parts (one leg one arm, no arms only legs, no legs only arms, et). The oars feather automatically as well. 
• FES (Functional Electrical Stimulation)
• Allows Paraplegic athletes to stimulate paralyzed leg muscles. Rowers control their legs by pressing a button on the rowing machine handle, which then transmits electrical impulses through electrodes to the never controlling their leg muscles.

Project Ideas:

     I want to focus on how to help Adaptive rowers to be more independent. It is a very broad topic for a project, but I think there are many aspects that we can focus on to help adaptive rowers to be more independent. For example how can cox box help adaptive rower's independence and safety? How can we make height of the Back easy to control? One of the hardest object to deal with are pontoons as they need to be attached and detached on the dock side, they are heavy, and they allow water to keep coming in. So I was thinking of perhaps making pontoon similar to an air bag that deflate and inflate so it does not have to be detached and attached, which is too heavy for adaptive rowers to carry. Moreover, dock-side trainer and erg should also be developed in a way that will be easy for adaptive rowers to use. I would also like think about ways to help adaptive rowers carry things down the dock by themselves for more independence. 

Questions I would like to ask:

To the Rowers

• What is the biggest challenge for you as an adaptive rower?
• What are some of the challenges for you to be an independent adaptive rower?
• Do you have any challenge with feathering?
• What are your feelings about the Pontoons?
• How do you feel about dock-said training and erging as an adaptive rower?

To the faculty/coaches

• Do you have any challenge adjusting the Layback Angle for adaptive Rowers? How about for catch Angle and Rigger adjustment?
• What type of Adaptive rowing is your priority interest?
• Do you use FES?

Being Wrong Reading Response

Being Wrong by Kathryn Shulz and Engineering

     "You are WRONG." The one sentence no one wants to hear, always give us a moment of epiphany that everyone avoids to have. We want certainty, we want truth, and we make sure we HAVE them. We make sure we are right. However, it is inevitable for us to make mistake as Augustine once wrote "fallow ergo sum": I err, therefore I am. In the book "Being Wrong" by Kathryn Shulz, she discusses about the psychology, reasoning, and experience of being wrong. Her idea of "wrongology" leaves us a valuable lesson that may make our lives much easier: it is OKAY to be wrong. In fact, being wrong is actually GOOD. This positive aspect of being wrong pointed out by Kathryn Shulz can be easily explored through aspects of engineering such as the ways in which design can cause errors, the implications of failure in design, and the reality that products often must fail before they can succeed.

     Firstly, there are several ways in which design can cause errors in engineering. Engineers often fall in love with their first ideas. That light of the light bulb they thought they had or have is hard to let go as "our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient (Shulz, 4)." However, this love for one particular idea can cause narrow-mindedness and prevent engineers to see better, more functioning ideas. Moreover, it may trigger engineers to IGNORE such errors, reluctant to admitting their errors. In addition to falling in love with their ideas, engineers simply cannot predict how design works until people actually start using them. People's minds are unpredictable; depending on how people were shaped in what kind of society they grew up in, people may react to a product's design completely different from what engineers expect. 

     The hardest thing of being an engineer, however, is that although there are so many factors that lead to errors, engineers simply cannot afford to be wrong. In fields like engineering, "certainty is the best choice because doubt is a bad one - counterproductive at best, dangerous at worst" (Shulz, 166). For example, the implications of errors in engineering may cause massive economic loss to life-threatening injuries. Depending on the design, the product may not only bring safety and huge profit, but also danger and debt. Engineers are human and we are all aware that we will be wrong at one point or another; thus, we must try to limit our errors, and focus on being less wrong rather than completely eliminating being wrong (which is impossible anyway). 

     Those errors that engineers face - hopefully while they are testing for the product - do have positive outcomes just as Shulz argues in her book about how being wrong can lead to improvements. "Psychologists  love errors and misconceptions, for they give important clues about the organization and operation of our minds" (Norman, 36); and so does engineers. As the reality of engineering is that the product must fail before it succeeds. "Error, disguised as the light of truth" (Shulz, 33) gives us valuable insight to the potential of the product. Thus, the ability to embrace errors and to learn from it is truly important in the field of engineering. 

     There are indeed ways to lessen mistakes as Shulz points out. It is to be open-minded and democratic. We must "foster the ability to listen to each other and the freedom to speak our minds, " (Shulz, 311). Then the way we deal with being wrong will be much more productive; "realizing we can tell a better one: rich with better ideas, better possibilities" (Shulz, 339) will be the one beautiful skill we can develop by being wrong.