In the conclusion of my post My Brother’s Inventions (in the ‘Pop-a-wheelies’ category), I teased my brother Ted and myself for overcompensating, getting carried away by creativity, and making a mountain-like solution for a molehill-like problem. My last example there involved my design of a gadget that would put the foot pedals of my wheelchair in their ‘down’ position from their ‘up’ position with a simple dowel that I could hold in my hand and a bit of maneuvering that I could do with my feet. I was satisfied at first, but as days went by, I found it just too time-consuming to manipulate the dowel because of my limited dexterity. So Ted and I put our heads together and kept each other in check and finally settled on simply loosening the hinges of the foot pedals just enough to make them fall flat (‘down’ position) easily after I  gave them a slight shove in the right direction. This also worked just fine, but I needed something even simpler. I told Ted that I wanted the foot pedal hinges loosened all the way, so I wouldn’t have to bend over at all to put the pedals down, but I needed a way to secure them in their ‘up’ position. Well, as it turned out, the solution was simple: a super strong magnet taped tightly around the bar of each footrest holds the pedal up; a slight shove with the dowel away from the magnetic field lets it fall down flat.  And this is the product of two geniuses at work.

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