Aussie student places in international design award by helping wheelchair users get outdoors

Australia has always been a country of the great outdoors, but until recently some of us haven’t experienced it as much as others.

Ryan Tilley was only in a wheelchair for a few days, but it was enough to put him on the path that gave him the idea of a lifetime.

The 23-year-old was in Singapore for a university study tour, which involved spending time using a wheelchair, as an “empathy component” of the trip.

“That’s when I realised how hard it could be as a wheelchair user,” Mr Tilley told news.com.au.

“I grew up in rural Australia so I spent a lot of time outdoors, camping, mountain biking, I just realised how hard it could be for a wheelchair user to get outdoors.”

But a trip to the beach with his wheelchair-using friend Huy sparked an idea that recently brought the young designer international recognition.

“We went down to the beach together and I noticed he had to take a bunch of bulky equipment just to get down there, even then it was still hard. He just said to me one day, ‘I need a portable way to get down to the beach.’”

That led to the design of the Gecko Traxx.

Ryan and Huy by the beach. Picture: Daniel Pockett

The Traxx are designed to be fitted to a standard wheelchair in seconds without any help, and let you traverse soft and difficult terrain like sand or snow by increasing the footprint of the wheel’s tyre, similar to how letting the tyres down on a 4WD stops it getting bogged on the beach.

Given it was designed to help people with mobility issues experience the outdoors, it only makes sense for the Traxx to be inspired by nature.

“We settled on a tyre that was inspired by a gecko’s foot spreading out,” Mr Tilley said.

Early prototypes used flexible 3D-printed material glued together, but now a mould exists to simplify and scale up manufacturing to make the product more commercially viable.

Mr Tilley studied industrial design and mechanical engineering at RMIT, where he became interested in assistive technology.

The Gecko Traxx spread out on the ground and taper back up when not in contact. Picture: Daniel Pockett

He graduated at the end of last year, working briefly for a design consultancy firm in Melbourne before quitting to focus full-time on bringing the Gecko Traxx.

He said the company has already received a number of pre-sales, but thousands flocked to the Gecko Traxx website following the announcement the design finished in the top three of the James Dyson international design award.

But Mr Tilley doesn’t plan on selling out to an investor or company overseas.

“A big thing for us is we want to keep it Australian made and designed,” Mr Tilley said.

“Pretty much all of our assistive technology is imported, keeping it in Australia lets us control the supply chain. We want to make it from polyurethane as well so it’s fully recyclable. After five years like any other tyre it will wear out, people can bring it back to us for a discount.”

Mr Tilley is only the second Australian student to finish in the top three of the James Dyson award. He said the simplicity of the design was the key to its success.

“There’s nothing complex about the product at all. When I’m designing keeping it as simple as possible is key.”

The design may be simple, but it could have massive impacts for millions of people.

The Gecko Traxx make it easier for wheelchair users to cross difficult surfaces. Photo: Daniel Pockett

“In Australia alone there’s 175,000 manual wheelchair users. Globally there’s 75 million people who need or use a wheelchair,” Mr Tilley said.

“The impacts Gecko Traxx can have, especially in developing countries like Cambodia and Vietnam, some of the mobility problems people face daily on all the terrain they’re trying to navigate, potholed roads, that sort of thing — having a low-cost solution like this that’s portable — the impact on some of those markets is massive.”

The Gecko Traxx sell for $599, which Mr Tilley said is around half what other solutions can cost, and gives greater independence by allowing you to take them on or off from inside the chair.

They can also be funded under the National Disability Insurance Scheme if you qualify for it.