Erik and the No Barriers team recently concluded the No Barriers Festival 2009, held at Shake-A-Leg Miami, which showcased some of the most cutting-edge ideas, approaches, techniques and technologies enabling people with challenges to push through their own personal barriers to live more full and adventurous lives. No Barriers shared its mission with participants from as far away as Hawaii and Alaska, Venezuela and Columbia, and Switzerland and Israel. It brought together pioneers, many with disabilities themselves, who are pushing the envelope in a variety of fields, from technology and science, to art and athletics, to adventure and humanitarian causes.  

The festival included numerous adaptive clinics, which demonstrated innovative techniques for open water swimming, paddling and scuba diving for amputees and paraplegics. Adaptive yoga classes helped those with severe mobility issues to increase flexibility and reduce pain. A scientist from MIT demonstrated his own pair of prosthetic legs, with computerized ankle joints, controlled by his cell phone. A blind sailor led tours for other blind participants using a talking GPS to navigate. A paraplegic athlete showed off his hand cycle which morphs into a wheelchair, enabling him to instantly rise to the height of a standing person and fit through narrow doorways. Capping the festival off was Molly the Pony, who lost her leg during Katrina and became one of the first ponies to be fitted with a prosthetic leg.

A participant tests out a morphing hand-cycle that with the flip of a switch rises up to a standing person's Eye level and can fit through narrow doorways. / Andrea Kennedy

BY JAMES H. BURNETT III
JBURNETT@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Before last month, Erik Weihenmayer, 40, had never seen his young daughter.

But through technology once limited to the imagination of science fiction writers, Weihenmayer, born sight-impaired, now catches glimpses of people and things he previously had only been able to touch or hear.
The technology is called BrainPort, and this weekend it will be one of several jaw-dropping devices on display in Miami at the No Barriers Festival, an international gathering of physically limited athletes, wounded soldiers, disabled kids and hopeful parents, and the scientists and doctors who develop the technology that lets them match the able-bodied step for step.
''I can't tell you how amazing and surreal it has been,'' Weihenmayer, of Colorado, says of his BrainPort -- one of just three prototypes in existence. ''This sort of technology is not just ahead of the curve, it's miles ahead of anything we've seen before,'' said Weihenmayer, president of No Barriers USA, which created the festival.

Weihenmayer, who has been completely blind since age 13, is not seeing in high resolution or color, but the images are clear enough to make out words, reach out and pet the dog or see the silhouette of his 8-year-old daughter Emma and engage in simple pleasures like playing tic-tac-toe or rolling a ball back and forth with her.

Along with the BrainPort, the festival's Innovation Village and symposiums will showcase advanced GPS devices for the blind and ''smart'' prosthetic limbs that read and react to brain signals like real nerve endings -- the latter being the creation of MIT professor and festival co-chair Hugh Herr, who has used them in recent years to resume his rock-climbing hobby. Also on hand: Molly the ''amputee'' pony.

More than the ''wow'' factor, experts say, the technology behind the devices is changing the meaning of ''disabled'' and redefining ``able-bodied.''
'There was a time not that long ago when most people might see someone like me -- a paraplegic in a wheelchair -- and automatically assume `disabled,' '' says Harry Horgan, a sailor and founder of Shake-a-Leg Miami, the nonprofit aquatic and sailing center in Coconut Grove that is hosting No Barriers.

The BrainPort dates to the 1960s, when neuroscientist Paul Bach-y-Rita began working to develop an artificial sight generator. By the time Bach-y-Rita died in November 2006, Wicab -- his Middleton, Wis., company -- had developed the BrainPort.

''One of Paul's favorite expressions . . . was that you don't see with your eyes, you see with your brain,'' says Wicab President Robert Beckman. ``Paul also liked to say that if your eyes or any other sensor are damaged, you can use an alternate sensor, because the brain is not hard-wired.''
A second BrainPort prototype will be given to another test subject next week. When the device is cleared for wider use -- likely in the next few months following presumed FDA approval, Beckman says -- it will cost about $10,000.

For all the hope and buzz the BrainPort may generate, some No Barriers attendees are otherwise preoccupied. ''I'm really looking forward to the hand cycle,'' says Juan Carlos Gil, 27, a sailor and champion hand cyclist who was born with cerebral palsy and has limited use of his legs.
Gil, who volunteers at Shake-A-Leg Miami, is referring to a new type of cycle that with the flip of a switch can stand upright.

That's important, Gil says, because traditional hand cycles have such wide bases they can't fit through doorways and other narrow spaces. ``So you have to rely on other people to carry your cycle outdoors and then help you out and help you into your cycle. This is another step toward independence for us.''

Kerry Gruson, a regular at Shake-A-Leg Miami, will also be presenting in a symposium at the festival.

Gruson, 61, a retired New York Times reporter partially paralyzed in 1974 when a Vietnam Veteran she was interviewing suffered a traumatic flashback and strangled her, can't move her legs. Her arms have a short range. Her head is permanently cocked to one side. Still, she holds several world sailing titles, including a few won in competitions against able-bodied sailors.

Her technological aid? A lightweight, custom-designed chair and pulley system that allow Gruson to slide with ease from one side of her boat to the other, giving her quick access to sails and rudder.
''Sailing is as much about thinking and strategy as it is the physical,'' she said. ``And that's why I win.''