Taking a stroll on the beach, frolicking through the woods, walking up the stairs, looking at people at eye level and going to the grocery store with the ability to reach the items on the top shelf. These are things we take the granted, but for those who are physically disabled, it is not so simple.A new wheelchair called the Individual Balancing Optimized Transporter 3000 could change all that. A demonstration of this new invention by Dean Kamen, president of DEKA Research and Development Corporation, was held on Tuesday night at Ohio State’s Wexner Center Film/Video Theater.Kamen showed the audience just how revolutionary the IBOT could be.While sitting in the IBOT, he walked up the stairs to a raised platform by having the wheels roll over one another and holding on to the railing. He then rose the wheelchair up and balanced on two wheels, which raised him to about 6 feet high. Both of these tasks were done by setting the various modes on the IBOT. Some of the modes include four-wheel-drive, stair-climbing mode and a balance mode for when it is raised.He then showed a video, taken from a television interview, displaying the IBOT’s different capabilities. The four-wheel drive capabilities were shown by the IBOT driving on the beach and through the woods. It showed exactly how it raises up to eye level to look people in the eye and enabling them to reach items on the top shelf of a grocery store. The IBOT was then shown climbing up stairs and curbs.Elizabeth, a patron of the Wexner Center who would only be identified by her first name, was shocked after seeing the IBOT walk down the stairs. “It made me cry,” she said.Shoshana Pehowiz of Columbus said the IBOT looked wonderful.”That wheelchair would allow me to do so much more and be a lot more mainstream,” Pehowiz said.Two of the features were especially attractive to her.”Being able to climb up stairs would be amazing and being able to go on sand or gravel because my wheelchair can not even go on grass,” Pehowiz said.Benge Ambrogi, mechanical and system engineer for DEKA, has been working on the IBOT since 1993. He said the IBOT was originally funded internally.”Before we got on board with Johnson & Johnson, it was a heyday and we really took it a long way in a very short time,” Ambrogi said.Kamen said he is hoping the Food and Drug Administration will approve the IBOT soon so it can be released to the general public.”I am very confident that it will be some time next year but I’m not sure whether it will be early next year or late next year,” Kamen said.Kamen said he was inspired to create the IBOT after seeing a physically disabled man struggling to get up a curb.”We like to work on important problems,” Kamen said.Kamen said the IBOT is run on batteries and can run for a long time.”It can run all day long for a typical day’s activities. Just plug it in when you go to bed at night and in the morning it is ready to do it all over again,” he said.Kamen said the IBOT will cost about $20,000 to $25,000 but it is well worth it.”If you think the cost of $20,000 is a lot, think about the cost of being disabled,” he said.Pehowiz said she worried about the cost of the IBOT, and she wonders whether insurance companies will help pay for it.”If I could afford it, though, I would snap it up so fast,” Pehowiz said.Kamen said to think about the pay back versus the alternative to not having one.”What if the person couldn’t work? Now they can; the person can live in a normal home and not in an institution and drive a normal van without having to have it modified,” Kamen said, “But the really big issue is it supplies dignity, mobility and freedom, which is hard to put a dollar value on.” Ambrogi said he is already working on developing a new IBOT.”We are looking at the next generation of IBOT,” Ambrogi said.Kamen admitted a reason for coming to OSU is to find future employees because he doesn’t find them by standard means. “DEKA is looking for extraordinary engineers, electronic people, industrial design people and mechanical people,” Kamen said.He also came to promote the Robotics Competition for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, to try and get OSU involved with the program.