Hot Wheels that Help Kids

When two University of Delaware professors, Sunil Agrawal, a mechanical engineer, and Cole Galloway, a physical therapist and infant behavior expert, had a lab meeting at a Toys”R”Us in 2006 — they had no idea how many lives they would touch with their future work. Today, their innovative, open-source workarounds have provided mobility and socialization opportunities for scores of children with disabilities.

Combined with a selfless desire to help others, the pair’s skills gave birth to a research-powered, donation-driven, grassroots initiative called GoBabyGo, which creates free or affordable wheeled mobility devices for kids who need them.

With 60 international chapters, 8,000 Facebook followers and no “real leader,” as Galloway put it, GoBabyGo is a “farmer’s market gone nuts,” he said. Those involved in the movement are not in it for financial gain or commercialization — they are in it to make a difference.

After buying parts and pieces at Home Depot and Joann Fabric, GoBabyGo volunteers conduct workshops in which they convert battery-powered toy cars to meet the needs of unique children. Galloway refers to it as a “one-stop shop.”

Reminiscent of a Mr. Potato Head accessory kit, each moving device has parts and pieces that are adapted until a child’s specific needs are addressed. On/off switches may be relocated to alternate locations (such as the back of a head rest), for example, offering a child the opportunity to take control of his or her new “car.”

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“No one’s waiting around for large companies to fix our problems anymore,” said Galloway. And GoBabyGo is a prime example of end users hacking devices to meet their needs. With no alternatives to pediatric power chairs (which are fitted between 5 and 8 years of age and carry a hefty price tag of some $25,000 or far beyond), kids are not given the opportunity to be mobile at an early, critical time of their lives.

“Science progresses too slowly. There’s a need to move at the speed of life,” Galloway explained to LifeZette.

Galloway defines efforts by the GoBabyGo community as “low-tech” medical hacking, with “Mr. or Mrs. Jones mechanically and technically modifying Fisher-Price toys for their kids.”

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With a new chapter starting almost every month, GoBabyGo is witness to its own life-changing results. While kids hang their mouths open in sheer delight, parents have the opportunity to vocalize words they never had before: “Hey, honey! Please come back.”

“How do you learn to be mobile when you aren’t mobile?” asked Galloway. “You measure yourself against your peers: ‘Can you go where they go?’ ‘Can you move as fast as they can?'”

“Most of these kids are already behind at birth,” he said. “With the average toddler moving 6 to 8 hours out of the day, we knew we could provide something better for these kids right now. Why wait?”

GoBabyGo hasn’t stopped innovating. It is currently retrofitting a house with a harness system that will act as a passive patient mover, allowing adults and children with mobility challenges to stand and move from place to place — all for under $500.

It’s “a zipline rollercoaster that has been brought to the ground,” said Galloway.

Galloway is loud and clear about his message: “Mobility matters.” With personal goals to change the public’s view from “special” to “adventure,” Galloway has his eye set on gaining visibility at the 2016 X games.

Jewels Doskicz is an Arizona-based registered nurse and patient advocate with 20 years of experience.