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Low-cost, 3D printable devices allow wheelchair users and people with grip strength issues to play billiards. Photo by Nat Kallet.
July 17, 2026
By Tristan Horrom
VA Research Communications
“Being able to participate definitely puts you in a better state of mind and improves your quality of life. It brings you back to reality.”
VA engineers at the Human Research Engineering Laboratories (HERL) are partnering with the University of Illinois to create a repository of adaptive equipment designed to help people with disabilities participate in sports and other recreational activities.
The open-source, online repository already contains free designs for adaptive devices for billiards, miniature golf, swimming, and many other activities. Each device can be constructed using 3D-printing and readily available materials, designed to keep the fabrication costs below $100 to be accessible to as many people as possible.\
Device allows a golf club to attach to the arm. Photo by Nat Kallet
Dr. Jonathan Duvall, the project’s principal investigator, said he and his colleagues are working to find the balance between participation and accessibility. Right now, the availability of adaptive equipment is extremely limited outside of assistive devices for activities of daily living. While adaptive sports equipment is currently available, such as a specific wheelchair designed for basketball, it can cost thousands of dollars. HERL’s low-cost options allow Veterans and others with disabilities to be active and participate in their communities without breaking the bank.
Research has shown one of the most important factors affecting quality of life is recreation and leisure. While being active improves both physical and mental health, it’s just as important to be part of a community and interact with friends and family.
Many Veterans with disabilities have created their own makeshift devices to stay involved with activities they enjoy, sometimes even out of cardboard and craft supplies according to Duvall, but the results are usually not very durable. Even Duvall, himself a power wheelchair user because of a spinal cord injury, began making his own devices with 3D printing so he could play pool and other games with friends.
To help provide more permanent solutions and bring them to more users, the research team asked for suggestions from members of various affected groups, such as the Paralyzed Veterans of America. By soliciting ideas from the public, they hoped to find the areas of need that could help the most people.
Air Force Veteran Sean Ferry became a project contributor after he learned of it through the Keystone chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America in Pittsburgh, of which HERL director Dr. Rory Cooper is also a member.
“For me personally, it’s very important and exciting what they’re doing,” said Ferry. “When you get hurt, your life changes really fast. When I started seeing adaptive sports, I wanted to try them. You don’t have to be stuck in the house. The engineers’ inventions, that can be printed right out on 3D printers, could really change a person’s life.”
Ferry has contributed several ideas to the project, including a device that allows a wheelchair user to send a bowling ball down the lane with a push.
A device to push a bowling ball down the alley. Photo courtesy of University of Illinois.
Anyone can submit an idea to the team through the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s online portal. Once an idea has been accepted and the engineers start working on a prototype, they collaborate with the submitter to refine and test the device.
“They’re very open to my input and any roadblocks I face or other suggestions I have,” explained Ferry. “Jon [Duvall]’s wheels are always spinning on how to do something new and make things available to people with disabilities.”
Along with the bowling ramp, Ferry has helped HERL researchers test a billiards stick and bridge and a putter designed to help people in wheelchairs play miniature golf.
The online repository currently hosts fifteen designs with full documentation, including multiple grips for billiard cues; swim paddles for people with limited hand dexterity; grips for table tennis paddles; miniature golf clubs; a bowling pusher; a fishing reel; and a rowing oar attachment to allow blind rowers to keep the orientation of their oars correct.
Swimmer using adaptive paddles. Photo ©Sage Publications.
The HERL team has even developed a catapult to allow a person with spinal cord injury to throw a beanbag for cornhole. While the cornhole catapult didn’t make the repository because of the manufacturing and engineering required, the team did take it to the Buckeye Wheelchair Games in Geneva, Ohio, for a demonstration. Ferry got to try out the catapult as well, and verified how fun it can be.
More prototypes are in the pipeline as well as refinements to existing devices, such as adding a motor to the bowling ramp that would allow wheelchair users to make small adjustments to the angle and may even let them apply spin to the ball.
Duvall is also interested in finding multiple applications for the same devices. For example, the table tennis grip could also be useful for other activities that involve holding one’s hand perpendicular, such as pickleball, and a device that attaches a mini golf club to the forearm could also be adapted for croquet.
A grip to make it easier to hold a table tennis paddle. Photo by Nat Kallet.
Duvall and the team are hopeful members of the disability community will continue to submit new ideas and work with them to bring more solutions to reality. He stressed the importance of meeting people where they are, since every person is different, and working directly with the people who would use their inventions.
That’s also why the team has not pursued patents on any of their designs. They want their devices to be used and shared as widely as possible.
“We thought it was a good idea to get these ideas out there – to let people make them themselves rather than start a company that would produce or license them,” said Duvall. “We wanted to remove any roadblocks to people getting these devices.”
Ferry has seen firsthand how lifechanging these adaptive devices can be for people with disabilities and hopes others will submit their ideas.
“Being able to participate definitely puts you in a better state of mind and improves your quality of life. It brings you back to reality,” he explained. “You’re almost not disabled, you’re differently abled. You see everything you can do. You’ve got to get paralyzed people out doing things. It really clears the mind.”
HERL is a research partnership between VA and the University of Pittsburgh. Primary funding for the Power of Play project was provided to the University of Illinois from the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDLRR).
If you have an idea for an adaptive device that you would like to see developed, visit the project’s submission website here.
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