Everyone at Illinois sees bicycles (and sometimes narrowly avoids them) on a daily basis, but for Scott Daigle, graduate student in Engineering, they were what set his idea into motion, physically and figuratively.

“I got to work building the prototype, took it to a professor, and he helped me create the actual prototype, and we went from there,” explained Daigle.

Thus was born IntelliWheels and the Automatic Gear Shifting system that makes mobility less demanding for those with disabilities.

“I saw the value that it had in the wheelchair population,” said Marissa Siebel, a Ph.D student in AHS studying disability studies.

Siebel has been working closely with Daigle to promote and advance the IntelliWheels business. She also works on campus as the wheelchair athletic trainer for sports including wheelchair basketball and wheelchair racing. She pinpointed the main characteristics of the system, looking at it from the user’s point of view: It must be low profile and lightweight.

To the untrained eye, it is indeed low profile — it may even go unnoticed. To wheelchair users or those familiar with the field of disabilities, it is a relatively inconspicuous attachment to the wheels and underneath the manual chair.

“It senses what you’re doing, how fast you’re going, how hard you’re pushing, and what kind of tilt you’re on, and it selects the best gear for the job,” said Daigle. A user would handle it like a regular wheelchair; it is comparable to a bike in that it switches gears, yet it is automatic so there is no manual shifting needed.

As the winner of the 2011 Lemelson-MIT award (and the $30,000 that came with it), Daigle was able to propel IntelliWheels forward via extensive media coverage through the University and otherwise. The award is given to any student at Illinois who exhibits innovation through any means and could pertain to students in all fields of study.

“Scott started meeting more and more people in chairs and talking to them and actually listening to them,” said Josh George, a 2007 alum, medal-winning Paralympic athlete and a major spokesperson for IntelliWheels. “Both Marissa and Scott make such a huge effort to understand the end user of their products.”

As far as wheelchair usage goes, George is quite the expert; he has been a part of the U.S. national wheelchair team, not to mention the winner of numerous medals at the Paralympic games on three occasions. Presently, he is training for the London 2010 Paralympics.

“At least in the U.S., wheelchairs have been prevalent in society since World War II, and I guess people have thought of the idea (of the AGS system), but no one has been able to do it in such a compact, clean and effective way that Scott managed to,” said George.

The University has a history of being highly adapted to wheelchair users. It was the first university to have curb cuts, which are ramps at the end of curbs to accommodate those with disabilities.

“(Campus accessibility) is not perfect, but they’ve made tremendous strides,” Siebel said. “I think (the University has been) tremendous (in) the support of DRES.”

Siebel is well aware of and grateful to the Division of Rehabilitation and Educational Services for what they have done on campus.

“It’s sort of the birthplace of wheelchair sports,” said George.

Through DRES, the University also has a wheelchair training facility and an accessible system of buses for those who need it.

With all of this progress, there is still more in store for the future of IntelliWheels.

There are plans to expand to more products in the field of disability, including power chairs and more involved physical disabilities.

“(We want) to keep prototyping, keep developing the product, so we can create something that truly makes a difference in people’s lives,” said Daigle.

According to George, there are “big things” in store for IntelliWheels in later years.

“The vision of the company is to kind of start with this gear shifting idea, push it forward as far as we can, but then use that as a platform to become an innovation house rather than become just a one-pony show or just a one product company,” Daigle said.

“We’re not solving every problem that a wheelchair user would face,” said Siebel. “But we’re rather providing mobility options.”