MIT engineer designs wheelchair that takes on Third World conditions

Some students go to MIT to plumb the mysteries of the atom, or of outer space, or to press the limits of computer science.

Amos Winter went another way: He's trying to revolutionize the wheelchair. Specifically, he wants to make that most familiar aid to the disabled work in the Third World, where roads are bad, money tight, and the need immense.

A doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering, Winter calls his invention the Leveraged Freedom Chair - leveraged because it is powered by hand levers.