This past summer two high school researchers, Drew Kaplan and Shakeel Faizy, began to design a bathroom system for individuals with extreme disabilities such as cerebral palsy. This bathroom design Drew and Shakeel have created will allow individuals who cannot move on their own, and lack motor skills, to use the bathroom without the aid of others.

The inspiration for this project came from Shakeel, whose brother suffers from cerebral palsy. Shakeel’s brother’s condition requires constant aid and assistance from his family, with the creation of a bathroom like the prototype Drew and Shakeel are working on, his brother would be able to use the bathroom on his own.

When creating their design, Drew and Shakeel analyzed the aspects of bathroom usage that they found most important. The next step was redesigning a normal bathroom for more accessible use.

Here is an image of the bathroom system:

The bathroom consists of five main parts: it includes a rotating platform, a low to the ground shelf, for easy access,
a sink, a toilet, and a bath/dryer unit. Each station is engineered with automatic technology to improve and simplify hygiene.

In the Innovation Lab, Drew and Shakeel 3D printed the platform, chair, and tub/shower unit of our design. They used TinkerCAD to design the prototype for 3D printing. As of now, the duo is still working on the sink, toilet, and shelf designs.

Their next step is to program the chair to move into and out of the tub on a small embedded motor.

We look forward to what is to come from these two bright gentlemen!

Below is an image of both Drew (right) and Shakeel (left) holding the 3D printed prototypes they created in the lab.

Originally posted on SBU Innovation Lab Blog by Christopher Tasso.