Mail:
silvia.rohner@ost.ch
Hurray, we did it again!
Even though our pilot Rolf Schoch was driving the robotic wheelchair for the first time in a competitive setting, he managed to speed away, master the challenge and defend the title in the first Cybathlon Challenge. Congrats Rolf, you rock!
Rewatch the full competition here:
Thank you Cybathlon for the amazing event and scewo for the tough competition. We are looking forward to the next challenges and are thrilled to see which everyday obstacles our wheelchair must master next.
CYBATHLON Challenge May 2022
Now it's official: we will be part of the first CYBATHLON Challenge!
This time we will start with Rolf as race pilot.
Eager to see how we perform on the new stairs obstacle? Tune into the broadcast on May 20th, 12pm (CET).
The modified obstacle: Stairs
Rolf has to ascend and descend a straight staircase twice. The stairs now have different slopes.
Upcoming Events
CYBATHLON Challenge May 2022, Online: Robility enhanced will tackle the CYBATHLON Challenge in the Powered Wheelchair Race. Find more information and the stream here.
About the CYBATHLON
The CYBATHLON is a championship for pilots with disabilities who are using advanced assistive devices including robotic technologies. It took place for the first time on 8 October 2016. The competitions are comprised of different disciplines that will test the ability of pilots to navigate a series of everyday tasks while using a powered knee prosthesis, wearable arm prosthesis, powered exoskeleton, powered wheelchair, electrically stimulated muscles and novel brain-computer interfaces. The assistive devices will include commercially available products provided by companies, but also prototypes developed by research labs. There will be two medals for each competition, one for the pilot and one for the technology provider [Source: www.cybathlon.ethz.ch].
Team
Robility enhanced is the official CYBATHLON Wheelchair-team of the OST – Ostschweizer Fachhochschule. The project is initiated by the Institute for Lab Automation and Mechatronics (ILT). It aims at providing maximal agility and fun to our pilot Florian at the days of the races by means of an enhanced race chair. The technical team consists of project engineers of the ILT, as well as numerous Bachelor’s and Master’s students in mechanical engineering.
Florian Hauser
Pilot
Rolf Schoch
Pilot
Silvia Rohner
Project Manager
Benjamin Eggimann
Lead Engineer
Jan Schmid
Project Engineer
Patricia Bühler
Project Engineer, Sponsoring
Fabio Marti
Project Engineer
Raphael Schröder
Project Engineer
Sponsors
Diamond Sponsor 2022
Gold Sponsor 2022
Sponsoring
Every year, team Robility enhanced has an exciting race schedule with lots of opportunities to show our performance. This is only possible in proud collaboration with our sponsoring partners. They support our enhanced-teams with their great products as well as financial aid to support our engineering salaries for development and training. Additionally, we use the financial sponsorings to cover the travel and logistics expenses we have for international performances like Düsseldorf 2017, Tokyo 2018 and Kawasaki 2019.
If you want to be part of our enhanced-teams and become a sponsoring partner, make sure you have a look at out Sponsoring Packages 2020.
Please do not hesitate to contact us (silvia.rohner@ost.ch). We are looking forward to teaming up with you for this project!
Patrons
eMDe Blechfabrik AG
Cybathlon 2020
CYBATHLON EXPERIENCE AT SWISS HANDICAP 2019
CYBATHLON EXPERIENCE AT WELTKLASSE ZÜRICH 2019
Besuch der Vereinigung Christlicher Unternehmer
CYBATHLON Series 2019, Kawasaki Japan
HSR enhanced at CYBATHLON Experience 2018
CYBATHLON Experience 2017, Düsseldorf RehaCare
HSR enhanced at CYBATHLON Experience 2017
The road to success
HSR enhanced wins Powered Wheelchair Race at CYBATHLON 2016
Development and Training, HSR, 2016
Video by Scitec Media
Video by Scitec Media
Successful CYBATHLON Experience @WRS in Tokyo
Team HSR enhanced has participated in the CYBATHLON Experience at the World Robot Summit exhibition in Tokyo. Each day from 17-21 Oct 2018 we gave two live demos climbing the new six-step stairs, and one technical introduction into the functions of our race wheelchair ‘ZED evolution’ in development for CYBATHLON 2020. Present on site were pilot Florian Hauser, engineers Raphael Schröder and Sergio Miracco, and team leader Prof. Dr. Christian Bermes. The crew was completed by Claudia Troger from HSR communications, who has tirelessly documented every move and has fed HSR’s social media channels with exciting daily updates.
Further highlights of our mission were the workshop ‘Dialog towards an inclusive society’ including a joint presentation by Florian Hauser and Christian Bermes, a team reception hosted by Swiss Ambassador H.E. Mr. Jean-François Paroz in the Swiss Embassy Tokyo, as well as his visit on-site to watch the live demo of CYBATHLON Team HSR enhanced at WRS. Finally, the official announcement of the CYBATHLON Series Wheelchair Race 2019 in Kawasaki, and the technology workshop ’Towards the CYBATHLON Wheelchair Series Japan 2019’ with a presentation by Christian Bermes and lots of exchange between the teams for 2019 rounded off an unforgettable visit.
A big thank you to our host crew from Science and Technology Office at the Embassy of Switzerland in Tokyo: Kyoko Marumo and her team have made everything possible 24/7 for us and we cannot thank you enough! We would also like to give a special thanks to our sponsors who make all this possible with generous hardware and budget support! And last but not least thank you to the CYBATHLON organizers (especially Anni Kern and Dr. Lukas Jäger) and the University of Applied Sciences in Rapperswil (HSR)!
See you in Japan for CYBATHLON Powered Wheelchair Series 5-6 May 2019 in Kawasaki!
Successful CYBATHLON Experience @Rollivision in Nottwil
On June 23rd, HSR enhanced participated in the CYBATHLON Experience 2018 as part of the Rollivision fair at Swiss Paraplegic Centre Nottwil. In four demo runs, our pilot Florian Hauser had the chance to test two brand new obstacles from the CYBATHLON 2020 race rules: ‘Cobblestones’ and ‘Ramp&Door’.
According to the new race rules for ‘Ramp&Door’, the pilot may not touch the door anymore. Instead, pressing of the doorbell button and opening the door must be performed by a robotic manipulator integrated in the wheelchair. The pilot may, however, command this manipulator. The solution from Philipp Weber’s recent B.Sc. thesis, incorporating the robotic arm ‘JACO’ from our sponsor Kinova Robotics, proved to be very successful to fulfil the new requirements, such that pilot Florian could solve all the tasks at the obstacle.
For Florian, it was only his second training with his new race wheelchair 'ZED evolution' We are very proud that he solved all the obstacles presented to him flawlessly, and that he continuously improved the performance in every single run!
The event was also an important networking platform. Mutual feedbacks between the participating teams and the organizers, and a close contact to sponsors made the CYBATHLON Experience 2018 in Nottwil a significant event for all CYBATHLON stakeholders. We say thank you to the organizers, the teams and the guests that showed great interest at our exhibition booth. Also, a big thank you goes to our sponsors for helping us moving forward!
Newsletter
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Contact Information
Silvia Rohner
OST – Ostschweizer Fachhochschule, Campus Rapperswil
ILT Institute for Lab Automation and Mechatronics
Oberseestrasse 10
CH-8640 Rapperswil