Illinois student creates wheelchair with gear shifts

From The AP:

URBANA, Ill. -- If gear shifting is good for motorists and bicyclists, why not for wheelchair users?

That's what Scott Daigle (pictured) wondered as he watched people propel themselves around the University of Illinois campus in wheelchairs.

"They were going about as fast as they could. Their arms were the only things limiting them," said Daigle, a first-year graduate student in mechanical engineering.

Adding gear shifting to the wheelchair could help them get around more efficiently, he figured. So he set about designing improvements and came up with a continuous variable transmission.

There are already wheelchairs with gears, but Daigle's concept is distinct.

"The way mine is different is, it automatically senses your conditions, so if you're going quickly, it will shift to a higher gear, or if you're going up a hill, it will shift to a lower gear. The user doesn't even think about it," he said.

Daigle, 22, of Westmont came up with the idea in January, when he was a senior. He worked on the project last spring in a technology entrepreneurship class taught by Brian Lilly, and developed the first prototype last summer.

In refining his innovation, Daigle has to consider weight, cost and adaptability to existing wheelchairs.

"Being lightweight is the biggest challenge. If you do it wrong, it can get too heavy," he said. "You also want to create something that could be used on anyone's chair."

Daigle said he worked with his co-advisers in the graduate program Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler, a mechanical engineering professor, and Jacob Sosnoff, a kinesiology professor to apply for grants for the project.

He has applied to both the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance and the National Institutes of Health the latter for a Small Business Technology Transfer grant.