Building a Better Wheelchair
From: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
      Mechanical Science and Engineering News - 11/09/2009
By: Danyelle Michelini

Scott Daigle has been working on perfecting the functionality of wheelchairs.
His idea is to “help people who use manual wheelchairs move more
efficiently". He accomplished this by creating a design that uses gear ratios
(much like a bike) that allow the operator to work at the most efficient
speed. The wheelchair uses continuously variable transmissions (CVT) to give
it an infinite number of gear ratios so that there is a theoretically perfect
gear for every speed, slope and surface. 

The wheelchair shifts automatically by sensing the speed of the chair and the
slope ground and then picks an appropriate gear ratio. What really makes it
stand out is that the operator doesn’t have to be aware that they are in a
special chair. “They just sit down and use it like a normal chair,” said
Daigle. “There is no learning curve”.  

Read the entire article at:
http://mechse.illinois.edu/content/news/spotlight.php?id=236

Links:
UI student Scott Daigle improves wheelchairs
http://studentgenius.com/wordpress/?p=73

Scott Daigle Innovates Wheelchair Transportation
http://illinois.edu/lb/article/1442/31675/page=1/list=list

Brian Lilly
http://www.tec.illinois.edu/bio/blilly.html

GE 461
http://www.ge.uiuc.edu/tec/courses/te461.php

Technology Entrepreneur Center (TEC)
http://www.tec.illinois.edu/

Silicon Valley Workshop
http://www.ge.uiuc.edu/tec/students/sv.php

Magic Wheels
http://magicwheels.com/