Remember when you turned 16 and got that coveted driver’s license? It was your ticket to independence and the first big step toward adulthood. I don’t know many teens who aren’t itching to hit the road and -hard as it can be for us parents- we make sure it happens because it’s important! Well, we need to think in this same way when we consider the mobility needs of our students.

Murphy is a typical 16-year-old who’s always been dependent upon others to maneuver him about in his standard wheelchair. Factors such as his total paralysis, the small size of his home, and the family’s inability to transport a large power chair meant that he was restricted to a lightweight manual chair…until now. While these issues remain unchanged, we decided to pursue powered mobility for school use only so that he could move unaided among his peers. A used powerchair was recently donated through our REPEAT program so we snagged it for him!

Because Murphy’s only functional movement is in his right knee, he needs an alternative means of controlling the chair. While we intend to later progress him toward use of multiple head-controlled switches, we decided to pursue mounting of the original joystick at his foot for beginner access training. We reached out to DENSO manufacturing, one of our community AT collaborators, for help and their engineers created a base for attaching the joystick using 80/20 T-Slot Aluminum frame components. (As ‘AT Makers’ we were so happy to learn about this new material source for future fabrications!) We’ve done a lot of tweaking over the last few months but Murphy is able to drive his power chair using the slightest movement of his right foot!

He’s been homebound during the pandemic and will actually attend high school for the first time in August. He’s met us at the high school with the chair so he can “learn to drive” and is loving his newfound independence!