Wheelchair design covers new ground

	September 1999

Wheelchair design covers new ground

By Manuel Gallegos
The University Times Staff Writer

D.

Imagine a wheelchair capable of easily going on and off sidewalks, riding on grass, sand and other places where no ordinary chair is capable of going. Reality or fiction?
Reality. Students and professors from Cal State L.A., along with staff from Ranch Los Amigos Medical Center's Rehabilitation Program revealed a "dune buggy" wheelchair on June 10 as part of five projects of Hands-on Experiences in Rehabilitation Engineering.
Funded by the Department of Education at CSLA and the National Institute on Disability on Rehabilitation Research, H.E.R.E. is part of a Ranch Los Amigos program which, along with Engineering students from CSLA, is aiming to enhance the lives of the physically disabled.
Ranch Los Amigos, located in the city of Downey, has achieved an international reputation for over 40 years of serving and enhancing the lives of patients of all ages with severe disabilities.
"Part of the goal is to get traditionally disadvantaged students interested in rehabilitation engineering as a field," said Sammuel Landsberger, technical director of Ranch Los Amigos.
The "dune buggy" wheelchair was successfully tested at Santa Monica Beach a week before its unveiling. It is one of five projects by graduating seniors and freshmen engineering students in the MESA Engineering Program, a part of a course taught on campus.
Project coordinator and team leader, CSLA senior Ana Areola, said working on the project exposed her to some of the challenges by the physically disadvantaged.
"As an engineering student I would think of machines, technology and power, but I didn't think too much about people. But when people with disabilities, you realize as an engineer you can do so many things to change their lives," said Areola, who has also been a part-time worker at the Jet Propulsion Lab for the past two years.
"I'm so excited about this," added Milton Randle, director of the Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement program housed here at CSLA. Randle wants every engineering student to leave campus with some experience and "people skills." Having the students participate in projects like this is a step towards reaching that goal.

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