As Winter explains in today’s TED Talk, given at TEDxBoston, the majority of people who need wheelchairs live in rural communities, where rough terrain and long distances between buildings render a wheelchair unrealistic. Winter — a mechanical engineer at MIT — sought to create a chair that would cost less than $200, be easily repairable, be able to travel 5 kilometers easily, and still be nimble enough for use indoors.

To see how Winter created a chair that meets all these requirements by including a lever and getting lots of field testing from real users, give his talk a listen — it’s truly fascinating.

Above, Winter’s talk has been rendered in foam and marker by the design think tank Collective Next. For the past four years, the group has created looping visualizations of the talks given at TEDxBoston — showing the rich web of connections that emerge between assorted speakers and their ideas. After the jump, see more of their incredible designs, created for other speakers at TEDxBoston 2012 who have appeared on TED.com.

Caitria and Morgan O’Neil give the talk, “How to step up in the face of disaster.” Watch it »

Kent Larson shares his “Brilliant designs to fit more people in cities” »

Andrew McAfee asks, “Are droids taking our jobs?” See his talk »

Noah Wilson-Rich explains why “Every city needs healthy honey bees” »

Timothy Prestero gives the talk, “Design for people, not awards” »

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See the rest of these graphics, and how they fit together, at the Collective Next website.