Inventor Dean Kamen and the iBOT at Mobius Mobility headquarters in Manchester, N.H.
Kayana Szymczak for Yahoo News writes-
The fact that Kamen and his team succeeded in doing just that should come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed his multi-decade career. The iBOT, introduced in 1999, can, in fact, “walk” up and down stairs by rotating its two sets of powered wheels around each other like gears. It can be controlled remotely for loading or parking. It can keep its balance while scaling obstacles such as curbs or traveling through sand, gravel and shallow water. It can even raise its user from sitting to standing level by lifting one pair of wheels above the other.
But the story of the iBOT doesn’t end there. Instead, Kamen’s creativity and persistence are still being tested today, decades later, as he continues to search for innovative ways to overcome cost barriers and bring the next-generation iBOT, introduced in 2019, to as many people with disabilities as possible.
“It’s not incremental; it is transformative,” Kamen says. “There is nothing even trying to compete with the iBOT. We’ve now seen hundreds of people have their lives changed by it. It would almost be immoral to give up now.”
More info: https://mobiusmobility.com/
