You can weld two electric bicycles together to make an off-road wheelchair for a paralyzed person. The idea is pretty simple (“weld two bikes together”), but the bikes themselves are the result of a whole lot of careful engineering, going back well beyond the bikes themselves to the materials and technologies that went into them. And after a test run they found things to improve; testing and incremental improvement are inherent to the scientific and engineering processes.
You can spot a number of areas where improvement can be called for, from a need for better rear-wheel shocks to a better ingress/egress system, to perhaps something like an Ackermann steering system, to perhaps the need for different wheel spokes to deal with side loads that a bike wouldn’t have to worry about. The power system can always (*ALWAYS*) be improved. The seat looks kinda traumatizing. It should probably have retention systems. A roll bar? Lighten the connecting structure via optimized design and lighter materials (titanium or carbon fiber). Some way to collapse the structure for storage on the back of a van, say. But for a prototype, not too shabby. Lift fans. I SAID LIFT FANS.
Now.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to imagine what an alternate version of this would be. A version based on the same idea, “how to give off-road mobility to someone with no use of their legs,” but tackled not with modern western science, tech and engineering, but with “other ways of knowing.” I want to see one of these things as built within a system that empowers traditional and indigenous knowledges. I said I want to *see* one, not ride in one. Without even having anythign specific in mind, I can already imagine the tetanus and splinters, the structural failures and infections that would come with a non-STEM off-road wheel chair. Use vines to strap a paraplegic to a donkey, perhaps? Ill-trained carrier-gorillas? A hastily assembled travois lashed to a pig? Hodor?