Tuesday, October 7, 2008

It may not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but this off-road wheelchair has just about every other terrain covered. Christopher Rhoades, 19, above, takes it for a test drive at the University of South Florida with rehabilitative engineering professor Stephen Sundarrao looking on.

People who use wheelchairs "still want to enjoy their quality of life and do things they would normally do" if they didn't use wheelchairs, said Sundarrao, chief executive of Rehab Ideas, a year-old company founded at USF to develop student inventions for commercial sale.

That's what Travis Watkins had in mind when he devised the prototype of the Off-Road Wheelchair Kit for a class with Sundarrao two years ago. Watkins's invention got his father, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, back onto the beach.

The off-road kit, which Sundarrao said will sell for $4,995, works with any standard power wheelchair. Production of about 400 kits began last month; Sundarrao said potential buyers include beach and hunting resorts that would offer the kits to patrons for rent.

Watkins's final grade at the end of the semester? An A.

-- Lindsay Minnema