Segways must be the dorkiest of all recent tech inventions, but a New Zealand man may be breathing new, useful life into the moribund form of transport.
Kevin Halsall has built a hands-free wheelchair by stripping a Segway into spare parts. The Ogo, as he calls it, currently exists as a fibreglass prototype, featuring a high speed of 20 kilometres per hour, Stuff.co.nz reported.
Constructed to suit his friend Marcus Thompson, a paraplegic, Halsall started his project by taking apart a NZ$14,000 Segway. "The first thing I thought was 'if I didn't have my legs [the Segway] would be the perfect thing I'd be adapting'," Halsall told the publication. "The steering and the sensing of it needed to be refined more, and the only way I could do that was getting into the guts of the Segway."
The electric wheelchair boasts wide wheels for off-road terrain and a patented moving seat control, which allows the rider to manipulate the vehicle via the seat using their core muscles.
Halsall is now looking for angel investors to take his clever invention to the next level and scale up production. Pehaps Segway would like to invest?
(Hat tip Gizmodo)