Palaestra : Outdoor activity for seniors

Sammanfattning: The assignment from Slottsbro AB was to construct an outdoor activity in modular form, without electronics, mechanics or weights as resistance, targeting seniors. To gain better understanding of what kind of activities seniors need and what problem areas they have, interviews were made with physiotherapists’, researchers and training instructors. Seniors were interviewed and answered questionnaires and observations of various kinds were made to gain further knowledge and inspiration. A literature study was made to gain knowledge of seniors’ health and physiology, fitness and movement exercises and fall prevention. Exercise is a great way for preventing falls, especially functional training, meaning training to manage everyday life. It is particularly balance, leg strength, explosive arm strength and mobility that need to be trained. During the construction phase sketches of various suggestions on equipment or motion exercises were made and were consulted with Slottsbro AB. CAD-models were constructed based on the previous decisions. From these CAD-models prototypes at scale of 1:10 were made in the University workshop. The models were later used to take product pictures outdoors, in order to give an idea of how a full-scale design would look like. Scale models were also used in the compulsory thesis exhibition. To show how the park should be used a stop film was made. It was meant as an illustrative element during the exhibition and final presentation. The modules that were developed were:  A bench with three different seat heights  A balance board  A staircase combined with an inclined plane  Bars in different heights to stand by and do different types of exercises,  Rings attach to rubber bands with different resistance  Windlass, curved pipe and spinning wheels The activity park was named Palaestra which means “training” in Latin.