CRUTCH PROTOTYPE
I kept noticing old mop handles being thrown away around campus. The mop head gets worn out, but the handle itself is often still perfectly usable. I wanted to see if I could give one another use, so I tried designing a simple crutch around it using 3D-printed parts.
First version
The first version was mostly 3D printed, with the mop handle used as the main shaft. It worked well enough to get the basic idea together and gave me something physical to test and change.
What changed
For the later version, I added 8 mm threaded steel rods through the printed sections to make them sturdier. I also added a rubber foot and kept the option for height adjustment. The result was much more solid than the first version and started to feel like the idea could actually go somewhere. It’s still a prototype and hasn’t been load-tested as a mobility aid, but I think it’s an interesting use for something that would otherwise have been thrown away.
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