{"id":250943,"date":"2026-07-24T06:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T06:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/250943\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T06:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T06:39:11","slug":"pitts-human-engineering-research-labs-showcase-innovative-wheelchairs-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/250943\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitt’s Human Engineering Research Labs showcase innovative wheelchairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pitt’s Human Engineering Research Labs show off innovative wheelchair technology<\/p>\n

\"Kelly<\/a>PITTSBURGH \u2014<\/p>\n

The University of Pittsburgh’s Human Engineering Research Laboratories<\/a> showed off some of its most innovative creations during an open house in Bakery Square.<\/p>\n

One of the showcased projects was a federally funded wheelchair equipped with a robotic arm to help people with disabilities have better mobility and more independence.<\/p>\n

“The robotic arm does things like opens doors, picks up drinks, retrieves a cup from the back of the chair, and the really cool thing is that with this chair, you have the power mobility, you have self-leveling, which allows the chair to go over really uneven terrain without tipping,” HERL outreach specialist DJ Stemmler said.<\/p>\n

Another innovation on display was a Kirigami Wheelchair<\/a> that folds up and can be made quickly and affordably to meet custom needs.<\/p>\n

See the video above.<\/p>\n

Download the WTAE app<\/a> to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters<\/a> to get breaking news in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Looking for more news in your area | Subscribe to the WTAE YouTube Channel<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pitt’s Human Engineering Research Labs show off innovative wheelchair technology PITTSBURGH \u2014 The University of Pittsburgh’s Human Engineering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5735,15328,15321,5671,3798,107185,107186,107189,107191,107193,22969,107192,139,523,3398,73,75,74,107188,13987,2553,107190,107187,10254],"class_list":["post-250943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-chair","tag-disabilities","tag-disability","tag-display","tag-download","tag-herl","tag-human-engineering-research-laboratories","tag-human-engineering-research-labs","tag-innovative-wheelchair-technology","tag-innovative-wheelchairs","tag-mobility","tag-more-independence","tag-news","tag-people","tag-pitt","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-robotic-arm","tag-thing","tag-university-of-pittsburgh","tag-well-mobility","tag-wheelchairs","tag-wtae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}