Jeff Townsend spun his wheels, scooped up the basketball and dribbled hard to the hoop. His Illini teammate took an angle on Townsend and pushed powerfully on his own wheels. Both hustling at top speed, the two converged just underneath the net. Townsend suddenly leaned back into the curiously designed backrest of his wheelchair and came to a quick stop. His teammate had to lower his hands to stop his wheelchair before he could go for the block. Too late. That split-second advantage was all Townsend needed to toss in an uncontested lay-up.

Eric Larson, senior in FAA, watched this fast break intently from the baseline in IMPE’s Gym 2 on an early Wednesday morning. Despite his lanky frame, Larson was not attending this Illinois Men’s and Women’s Wheelchair Basketball practice to try out for the team.

Rather, the wheelchair basketball team was trying out a new wheelchair Larson invented called the Balance Sports Wheelchair. The wheelchair’s breakthrough feature is a hands-free braking system. A player can now stop without ever taking his hands off the ball.

This innovation promises to transform the way wheelchair sports are played.

“It is a whole lot different than my current ball chair,” said Townsend, a graduate assistant. “With my hands free, my play is so much more versatile.”

Larson asked Townsend how the chair was handling.

“It’s pulling a little to the right,” Townsend answered.

Larson leaned over and tightened the left-side brake pads, which are controlled by the backrest of the chair.

“I noticed that the brakes can be adjusted to me,” Townsend commented on the bicycle-styled brake system Larson incorporated into the design.

Larson’s workspace at the College of Fine and Applied Arts East Annex 1 resembles a bicycle repair shop with its rows of hanging wheels and stacks of metal tubing. The presence of metal saws, grinders, drill presses and welding equipment, however, hint at the facility’s former function as a sculpture shop.

Larson, an industrial design and jewelry fabrication dual major, explained that he moved his wheelchairs into the sculpture shop after he noticed it was not being used. Here, a routine student assignment turned into the project of a lifetime.

The light bulb for the Balance Wheel Chair first went off during a group project Larson shared with University alumni Ricky Biddle, Austin Cliff and Ben Shao in the spring semester of 2002. The four were assigned by an industrial design professor to create a fresh line of New Balance footwear.

After watching an Illini wheelchair basketball practice, the group was more inspired to tackle sports wheelchair design instead.

“There was just a ton of opportunities there,” said Larson. “We never realized how athletic (wheelchair athletes) were.”

The team noticed that many problems in the game were related to players having to use their hands to both maneuver the chair and handle the ball, said Larson. So they began conceptualizing a wheelchair capable of stopping and turning without hands. The torso seemed to be a logical substitute.

Larson and company drafted blueprints and built a crude model of a wheelchair in which a player’s body acted as a kind of joystick. Changing direction was accomplished by swiveling to one side or the other.

Larson did not know the design would get any further until a half-year later when his professor approached him with an irresistible offer.

“How would you like $20,000 to finish your wheelchair project?” the professor asked nonchalantly.

“I’m like ‘Yeah!,'” Larson recalled answering. After writing a grant proposal, Larson secured $16,000 from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance.

Over the next two years, Larson bore the task of completing the project in his free time. This often meant he would not get into his wheelchair shop until 10 p.m. and staying as late as 2:30 a.m.

The first wheelchair prototype with commercial potential came in the third generation of models Larson built. Its backrest is split, each side rigged to the brake on one of the wheels. Leaning on one half of the backrest applies the brake on that side and turns the wheelchair. Pushing straight back applies both brakes and stops the chair.

To make the design work, Larson needed more than a few helping hands. Biddle helped with the seat construction. University alumni Julie Miller and Cole Rusher, and seniors Mike Lombardi and Pat Bulpitt, both mechanical engineering majors, assisted with the brakes.

Just as critical was the cooperation Larson received from the men and women of the Illini Wheelchair Basketball team. Not only did the team oblige Larson’s requests to try out the wheelchair during practices, but they also seemed eager to aid in its success. They wanted to ride in it repeatedly until they could learn how to use it. The players gave feedback on the chair’s comfort level, adjustability and weight. They also proposed modifications that Larson had not considered.

But nobody on the team was more supportive than coach Mike Frogley, who regularly allowed Larson to pull players from practice.

“When I see a young man pursuing excellence, I’ll support him all the way,” Frogley said. “That’s the attitude of this University.”

Frogley called the University a deserving birthplace of Larson’s innovation because of its world leadership in the sport of wheelchair basketball. He said several athletes on the team were ranked among the best players in the world.

Frogley also recognized the potential impact of the Balance Sports Wheelchair on the game itself. He said the wheelchair will make posting up, transitioning to offense and coming off of a screen simpler.

But the hands-free design presents so many new possibilities, Frogley said, that much of its impact simply cannot be anticipated.

“This chair is revolutionary,” he said. “I think it is going to be the first in a whole new way of building chairs.”

Larson and his co-inventors signed over the rights to their design and a percentage of its earnings to the University.

“We, as individuals, do not have the tens of thousands of dollars to drop on this idea, as good as it is,” Larson said. “The University has given the wheelchair a better chance of seeing the light of day.”