I was at Abilities Expo today and saw.....

[SueM in MN]

I was at the Abilities Expo in Minneapolis today; if there is ever one near you, I'd highly recommend going. There were 200+ exhibitors with a variety of items of interest to people with disabilities. The products ranged from companies that sold small things - like a small telescoping stick to pick things up, to very large things like wheelchair accessible vans (and even a wheelchair accessible race car).

I saw a couple of cool items from small companies that I was impressed with and thought you might be interested in:

The first was a very clever lightweight tray from a company called Living EaZy.The clamp and pole can be easily attached or detached from a wheelchair, walker or other mobility aid and includes a tray, cup holder and hook. The inventor, Matt Elflein, was showing the tray at the ExpO and demonstrated how easy it is to move out of the way or remove it entirely.
The tag line on their literature is: Meet Life's Challenges and website is www.livingeazy.com
Matt has a very good demonstration video on his website that shows very well how easy the product is to use. The video also shows some uses and clicking on the "Products" tab shows pictures of the product in use by different people.
I was impressed with his product and told him I would be posting it on the disABILITIES Community Board.

The second product I want to highlight is a company called QuadAntics. Their tagline is "Disability Humor Everyone Can Laugh At!" and the website for their products is www.cafepress.com/quad
You might wonder what they make - well, they make t-shirts for humans and dogs. Some of their items are funny and made me smile (like "Station Wagon" and "Hot Coal Roller". They also have Halloween shirts with Headless Handiman, which I think is cute.
I do have to warn you that some of the humor is kind of 'out there' and a bit rude, but Robert and his girlfriend, Jessie were charming. I enjoyed talking to them and thought their products deserved a little publicity.

And, just to be clear, I was not asked to or given anything for posting this information. I talked with the people at both booths for a while and then advised them I wanted to kind of highlight them in a post here.
I don't know who was more surprised that I am posting this information - the people from these 2 companies or me!
I didn't go to the Abilities Expo intending to do this - I just was impressed by both companies.

There is one more company I wanted to mention (but, I didn't tell them I would be posting anything here). The last company is called Blue Sky Design and they don't actually make anything - they design things that employ Universal Design - that should work for people with disabilities as well as for people without disabilities; very unusual things like a wheelchair accessible tent. They come up with designs that can (hopefully) be licensed and then made into products. The item that was most interesting to me was a wheelchair mount for communication devices, computers or whatever the person needs. The mount can be moved by the person in the wheelchair. I was especially interested in this because DD and I had signed up to be on a focus group for this, but could not because of our trip last fall to WDW. They ended up with a very cool mount.

 

[KPeveler]

There is one in Hartford, CT on Sept 27th, just wanted to let people know.

Sue, sounds like you had a great time!

 

[silvergoldberry]

The first was a very clever lightweight tray from a company called Living EaZy.The clamp and pole can be easily attached or detached from a wheelchair, walker or other mobility aid and includes a tray, cup holder and hook. The inventor, Matt Elflein, was showing the tray at the ExpO and demonstrated how easy it is to move out of the way or remove it entirely.
The tag line on their literature is: Meet Life's Challenges and website is www.livingeazy.com
Matt has a very good demonstration video on his website that shows very well how easy the product is to use. The video also shows some uses and clicking on the "Products" tab shows pictures of the product in use by different people.
I was impressed with his product and told him I would be posting it on the disABILITIES Community Board.

This one is really neat. Just the kind of thing that my friend Jack could use, I was on their website and once he looked at it we decided to give one a try, but I couldn't believe the price! $199.00 intro price and $399.00 regular price!

Sue, Is there something really special about it that I'm missing that might be more obvious seeing it in person?

Jack loses things from his chair all the time when he goes out and I just can't see spending that much and then having him lose it, not to mention that the clamp may not even work on his power chair (no tubing like a manual chair)

But still a really cool idea....

 

[SueM in MN]

This one is really neat. Just the kind of thing that my friend Jack could use, I was on their website and once he looked at it we decided to give one a try, but I couldn't believe the price! $199.00 intro price and $399.00 regular price!

Sue, Is there something really special about it that I'm missing that might be more obvious seeing it in person?

Jack loses things from his chair all the time when he goes out and I just can't see spending that much and then having him lose it, not to mention that the clamp may not even work on his power chair (no tubing like a manual chair)

But still a really cool idea....

The cool part was that it was lightweight and easy for the user to take off and put on. It also didn't get in the way of the wheelchair user - even with something on the tray, he could still propel his wheelchair with no problem. It took him only about a minute to take it apart and stow it into a bag that he put on the back of his wheelchair.

It is expensive, but nothing made for wheelchairs is inexpensive. My DD has a wheelchair tray that was almost $400, but we hardly ever use it. It's clunky to put on and off; also big, so it's hard to bring along or store. And, the worst part is that when it's on, she can't propel her manual wheelchair.

The tray I linked to is not well suited for a power wheelchair. I know we had a lot of trouble finding a spot to mount the clamp for the holder for DD's communication device because of the lack of mounting spots.
Some trays get away from the 'no pipes' problem by mounting onto the arm of the power wheelchair. I don't know if this one (the Mini Lap Tray) would work for your friend, but it is worth a look.