Messenger - Vol. 2, No. 2, Page 19
Winter 1993
Wheelchair project ranks among best

     Flexibility and cost-savings are two benefits of a wheelchair
conversion kit that four mechanical engineering students designed, built
and tested. When attached to a mechanical wheelchair, the kit enables a
person with only one functioning arm to operate the chair. Their year-long
efforts earned Thomas Aukzemas, Delaware '91, Dennis Powers, Delaware '91,
John Moore, Delaware '92, and Michael Wallace, Delaware '91, the best
undergraduate project in the James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation's
pre-professional awards program.
     "We could put it on in about a half hour and when the hospital or
nursing home didn't need it any longer, we could remove it," says Aukzemas
of Wilmington, Del. The kit's versatility could eliminate the need for
left-arm and right-arm chairs, which sell for as much as $2,000 or more, he
says. Aukzemas says the kit would sell for about $500.