Go, baby!

[Skidmore]

Because this scientist is trying to get this out there to help as many kids as possible and is it such a great idea. Love the idea and that he is open sourcing it.

[Mnemosyne]

1. That is so wonderful and totally cool! Thanks for sharing, Skidmore! nt

[glowing]

2. An added bonus, the kid cars are sooo much cooler than a wheelchair.

It really does allow them to play like the other kids in their age group.

When you let Americans have the ability to work and use their heads and their hearts, we have quite a few unique solutions created for any problems.

In this country, we should have more govt's support and aid for grants to be given for new designs, ingenuity, and new enterprises for aspiring new companies. There is some truth in what Mitt Romney was saying about giving your kid $20,000 as and investment and seeing how they grow off of it from there... In today's world, most parents can't hand their kids that type of money and banks won't take a chance on an investment they aren't sure will make money.... But if we allowed for block grants that young, new enterprises could apply for, we might just come up with the next best thing(s).

I really keep thinking about the need for the small "family" farmers that we should be investing in. Much of our farming today is done by large corporate farming enterprises and they use a lot of energy, water, chemicals, modified limited variety plants, and contend with droughts, flooding and soil erosion/ degradation. This type of farming is unsustainable; especially as climate change is effecting our wealthier patterns. We need young, fresh new eyes and thoughts on combining sustainable, organic (hopefully), and varied food sources... And we need to help subsidize new farmers for land and resources or the ability to set up "city-scapes" as a means of food production.

[Skidmore]

3. I loved this solution for these kids because it also

built in activities to use them which addressed some of their physical therapy needs (e.g., putting the activation plate behind the little girl's head so that she had an incentive to hold her head upright and develop her neck muscles and coordination).

We do need new ideas and we need to be willing to share them instead of tying them up in patent and copyright legal mumbo-jumbo forever. There comes a time when an idea is given life that it becomes part of the general culture.

In regard to small farms, in our area there has been developed an association of small farmers which promotes returning the soil to support organic farming. They coordinate plantings so that crops can be rotated or land left fallow to support the maximum production of food for local consumption. They have also been successful in setting up distribution networks and establishing markets. There is a program nearby that is designed for veterans to become involved in small farming and is deemed therapeutic because, especially for those with PTSD, it allows them to work productively without being in an environment with sudden triggers or lots of people. I have some friends who abandoned careers in other professions to participate in this effort. I'd love to be able to see some of the land returned to natural prairie because we aren't so tied up in international grain production markets.

In some urban areas there has been movement to reclaim some of these empty box stores and use them for indoor gardening year round with some really good results. It seems to me that this would be a good way to address food production in a changing climate and there are plenty of ways to deal with man hours from volunteers to paid work as a gateway job to move people from homelessness to the job market.