iBOT changes I'd like to see

The number one change I would like to see on the iBOT
is:

MAKE IT GO FASTER WHEN IN BALANCE FUNCTION!!!

It crawls when it's in Balance Function. I really
dislike this because I love being in Balance, but
it's slower than a person's average walking speed.
Because of it's slowness, Balance Function is only
good for if you are not moving around much, like if
you are at a party, or if you are shopping. I'd
really like to go for a walk around the neighborhood
while in Balance Function, but it's too slow.

Other changes I'd like to see:

It'd be really nice if the battery charger was
built into the iBOT. And it'd be super nice if
there was just a retractable cord that had to be
plugged in. Instead there is this big thing

One cord plugs into the wall. The other cord plugs
into the Bot. To charge it completely takes around
4 to 6 hours. I charge it up at night. So far this
has worked fine, but what if I have an unplanned night
away from home? I'd have no way of charging it overnight
because I don't haul around the charger with me every time
I go somewhere.

I would also like the charge to last longer. I have never
used the Bot all day long yet. I use my manual chair around
the house (because my house is tiny and the Bot is large) and
I use the Bot whenever I leave the house. What if I'm on
vacation and I'm only using the Bot? The charge would
not last all day. Especially if I'm 4-Wheeling through
sand and stuff. When I'm on vacation, I really don't
want to spend time during the day sitting in my hotel
room waiting for the Bot to recharge.

It definitely need some cosmetic changes which I previously
posted about.

So...
1. Balance Function needs to go faster.
2. It would be nice if the charger were built in.
3. The charge should last longer than it currently does.
4. Cosmetic changes.

I don't know why they named the iBOT the iBOT. I get the
BOT part (robot), but not the i part. Because of the i
part, I really think they should throw in an iMac, iPod,
and an iPhone in the deal... all built-in to the Bot of
course. :D

Bottin' through the sand video...

I give up. I've tried to load this video numerous
times and it keeps loading an old video.

Yet another awesome day of bottin'!

At the time of my car accident that left me paralyzed,
I was an 8 year old kid and we were living in rural
Wisconsin. Behind our house was woods. Next to our
house was a lake. It was beautiful and I loved exploring
the woods and the lake. And then the accident happened
and suddenly I couldn't do those things anymore. This
morning I took the dogs to the dog park again and I got
to go through the woods and then stroll down the river
through the sand. I don't have the words to describe
how happy I am to be able to do this.

Over the past few days, I've sometimes been feeling
like I'm on cloud nine. But there is also a sadness
there. There's a sadness for the 29 years that I
couldn't do these things. I feel very detached from
that little girl who had to grow up in a wheelchair.
I look at her and I'm filled with grief.

The other sadness I am feeling is for other wheelchair
users who would love to have an iBOT, but can't afford
to buy one. I need to do something to help other
wheelers get their own iBOTs. I haven't figured out
how I'm going to do this yet, but I'm working on it.

Back to happy stuff. Here are some tracks I left
in the sand this morning.


This is where I made a tight turn.


Here is the woods I go through to get to the river.


I have some video, but I don't have time to post it right
now. I might do that later.

A Fantastic Bottin' Day

I took the doggies to the dog park this morning.
Usually I stay on the paved path. Today I put
the Bot in 4-Wheel Drive and I went exploring
on the dirt path. It was so much fun! The path
ended at the river. There was a pretty steep
and rocky path leading to the river. I was
a bit nervous to go down it, but I did it and
the iBOT did great. I even went through soft
sand. Yay! The fact that the iBOT can handle
soft sand thrills me!

After that I had to go to the shop where they
sell wheelchairs and wheelchair vans, etc, as
well as service them. I had to get some tie-
downs so that I could safely travel with the
iBOT in my van. They were ridiculously expensive,
of course. Anyone who knows about the cost of
medical equipment won't be surprised to hear
that these 4 simple lock-down things cost me
$400. It's absolutely ridiculous how expensive
being a crip is. But anyway, most of the people
who worked at the shop had never seen an iBOT
before. These are people who sell wheelchairs
and they had never seen one. I went into
Balance and the owner said, "Whoa, I wouldn't
believe it if I didn't see it myself!"

Then I went to Les Schwab because I needed new
tires on my car. I went in there in Standard
Function and I went to the counter and told
the guy what I needed. When the iBOT is in
Standard Function, it looks just like a regular
power chair. The guy left for a minute
to look at something and while he was gone I
put myself into Balance Function. The poor
guy came back and I think he thought he was
on Candid Camera or something. He stopped
dead in his tracks and his eyes got big and
he kind of shook his head. He recovered
though, and never asked me about it. LOL! Other
people asked though. It's funny how people are
very curious and I know they are shocked at
what they are seeing, but some of them won't
ask me about it. Which I totally understand.
When I was leaving the place I overheard the
people in the shop talking about it.

It's really pretty fun to see people's reactions.
I hope that in just a few years from now they
will be fairly common. I don't think that is likely
though, unless insurance companies decide to
start paying for them. And I don't think that
will be happening. It'll be interesting to
see where the iBOT is in 10 years. Will there
be anyone else making anything similar? What
improvements will be made? I know that manual
chairs have changed a whole lot in the past
29 years. Here is a picture of me in my very
first wheelchair.


What a beast that thing was! It wasn't until
I was a teenager when they came out with the
light-weight sporty manual chairs that most
wheelchair users today have. And now they've
got the super cool titanium chairs.

I'm really getting a kick out of how excited
kids are about the chair. Elementary age boys
in particular are fascinated. They always
say things like "That's so cool!". I had to
laugh today when I picked up my daughter from
school. There were a couple of 3rd grade boys
standing there and I went by in Balance Function.
One of the boys said to the other, "Oh my gosh!
Look at that!" The other boy who had already seen
it last week said, "Yeah, I know. That's so tight."

I have video from my off-road excursion today,
but I'm wondering if anyone even cares to see
it. Tell me if you are interested. Otherwise
I won't take the time to post it.

Regarding the videos from yesterday...

I meant to say this yesterday but I forgot. When I'm
in Balance Function, my daughter SHOULD NOT be holding
on to that bar and allowing me to pull her like she was.
I actually didn't realize she was doing that until I
looked at the video. Luckily she was on wheels herself
and so there was very little resistance there. If she
had pulled down really hard though, the chair could
have suddenly dropped to 4-Wheel Function, resulting
in an uncomfortable bump for me, and I suppose it could
even result in injuring her, which would be the worse
thing in the world.

I had an awesome morning in the iBOT. I took it places
I've never been before, but always wanted to go. I will
post more about it later.

Video of 4-Wheel Drive Function

Video of Balance Function

RAW VIDEO!!

I'm probably going to regret posting this, LOL!



The sound quality is really bad. Basically what
I was saying is that I've had my iBOT for a few
days now. People are amazed when they see it in
Balance Function. Everybody asks me how it works.
Someone once explained it to me like this:

If you try to balance a ruler on the ends of your
fingers and the ruler starts to fall forward, you
move your arm forward to keep it balanced. If it
starts to fall backward, you move your arm backward
to keep it balanced. The iBOT is kind of the same
thing.

If you look closely, you can see that the chair
is constantly in motion even when I do not have
my hand on the joystick. It automatically
responds to my body movements. If I lean
forward it thinks it's tipping over forward
and so it moves forward to stop from tipping
over.

The other thing people always ask me is if I
feel safe. Yes, I do feel safe. My daughter
can try to push me over, but she can't. Also,
even if it couldn't keep itself balanced, it
wouldn't tip over. It would just drop down
into 4-Wheel Drive Function. That would be
quite an uncomfortable bump, but better
than tipping over.

The Bot Needs a Serious Makeover

Okay, so there is one thing about the iBOT that
drives me crazy. It's hideous! It reminds me
of the very first wheelchair I got 29 years ago.
It was big, ugly, clunky, heavy... very unpleasant
to the eye.

The iBOT comes with two options. One option is
small or large. The other option is cushion or
no cushion. That's it. Usually when a person
purchases a new wheelchair, they at the very
least get to choose a color.

Have a look at the iBOT:


UH-GU-LEE. The back rest is way too high:


Who designed the footrest? Have you ever seen anything
uglier?


And could they have designed worse looking
caster wheels?

I don't think so.

But here's my favorite. See that grey plastic thingy
at the end of the left armrest?

Hello? Although I have to admit I find myself
grabbing it once in a while, that thing had to
go. I remember the very first time I saw the
chair. One of my first questions was, "Can that
ugly cheap grey plastic thing be taken off?"

I removed it today! Check out how much
better it looks:


I took the headrest off as well, but I can't
get that stupid grab bar off:


I've been told that they are coming out with better
looking casters and footrests next year sometime. I
don't know if I can wait that long. I saw a picture
of a guy with an iBOT and he has some sort of black
material covering it up. He's made some other mods
as well, and his iBOT looks great. I'm going to have
to figure out some things to do to mine.

They really need to design something more
like this:



Yep they do.

She may be ugly, but I still love her.

The Bot is Fixed

A tech drove down from Seattle yesterday to clear the
wrench. The iBOT is now back to the way it's supposed
to be. The tech also installed new software so that
in the future the wrench can be cleared remotedly. He
was here for only about 45 minutes. I'm very
impressed with IT's tech support. : )

One of the tires needs air. I'm going to get a gauge
and pump today so I can get that pumped back up. I'm
going to try to do a video later today regarding the
Balance Function.

Day 3 With(out) the iBOT

So, um, I had a little problem with the iBOT last night.
It's a long story, but I will say that it was 100% user
error.

I didn't get to use the stair function to get to my
daughter's classroom last night. But again, it was
100% user error.

Yes, the chair did tip over. It was in stair function
and it was only doing what it was told it should be doing.
No, I was not in it at the time, no one was injured,
and the chair is going to be perfectly fine (I think)!

A series of events due to stupidity and stubborness
led to the mishap. When something like that happens,
the people at Independence Technology want to know exactly
what happened and so the chair gave me what they call a
wrench. Basically they need to get infomation from the
iBOTs "black box" and then they will clear the wrench.

I just got a call from the tech who is going to clear
the wrench. He said he'd be here tomorrow to fix
things up. I'm completely impressed. I called
them and told them about the incident only a couple
of hours ago. They're sending a rep down tomorrow,
on a Saturday, from Seattle, to fix it. I've heard
the customer support and service Independence
Technology provides is exceptional, and now I know
it's true. They will also install new software so
that if something like this happens again in the
future, they'll be able to clear the wrench remotely,
rather than send a tech out. And guess what? They
won't charge me anything since they needed to come
out to install the new software anyway. Yay!

I'd like to reiterate that Indpendence Techonology
is in no way paying me to keep this blog and say
nice things about them and the iBOT. Everything
I write here is entirely my opinion. So far, their
product as well as their service has far exceeded
my expectations.

Here's what the wrench looks like on the LCD:


And this is from the manual: