Mechanical engineer Tom Carr wants to make life easier for wheelchair users and his latest design does just that. He has built the magic carpet - a buggy that a wheelchair user can roll straight onto, as opposed to having to transfer from one chair to another. Mr Carr, who is originally from England, has a prototype he's been trialling on his 93-hectare property at Ashbourne, South Australia. Along with his wife Laura, Mr Carr moved to Australia in 2010 and after living in Melbourne for five years, the couple found their way to their property in Ashbourne. The engineer built the magic carpet with his neighbour, Richard Hancock, who had been wanting Mr Carr to build the buggy for some time. Around Christmas time last year, everything fell into place. "He turned up and we chatted about it for a while over a coffee and a beer and then we started building the thing and it came together like that," Mr Carr said. Mr Carr now plans to build a road-legal version with a roll hoop and a seat belt. He has been provisionally approved for a grant that will help him do that. The grant, through the Julia Farr Association, will allow Mr Carr to work alongside a vehicle engineer in Adelaide. Mr Carr hopes to have a new prototype done by the end of 2024 but he has an eye on the bigger picture as well. The Magic Carpet would allow wheelchair users the ability to easily pop down to the shops, making an arduous task much easier. "For me, if I want to go have a coffee in Strathalbyn [15 minutes away], it means I have to transfer into the car, I have to lift my wheelchair over me, do the same when I get out and do the whole thing in reverse to go home," he said. "It's just a pain in the arse and it's quite strenuous on your body. "By designing a piece of kit where you can roll in and out as fast as you get in and out of a car, that will be life-changing for people in the sense that they'll access the community like they used to." Mr Carr became paraplegic in 2017 when he suffered a spinal cord injury in a car accident. Afterwards, he quickly found out there was plenty of space for improvement of products in the disability space. Having previously worked as an engineer making medical devices in the imaging space, such as X-ray tubes, he shifted his focus to disability which led the engineer to start Roark Design. Mr Carr has created a shower wheelchair that weighs just 12 kilograms, can easily be transported and is designed for users with compromised hand function. When creating something, Mr Carr likes to follow the philosophy of German designer Dieter Rams. "One of the things he is quite passionate about in product design is, less is better," Mr Carr said. "Less components - simplify the whole thing. "A lot of it [disability equipment] is clunky and heavy and if you can just pull away the fat a little bit, you'll design equipment that enables you to do a lot more. "Another thing that bugs the hell out of me with disability equipment is they make it slow, my life expectancy is reduced so I want it to be faster." Mr Rams isn't the only person Mr Carr has drawn inspiration from. When Mr Carr was in hospital following his injury, his wife Laura would read Sam Bailey's book, Head Over Heels. The book chronicle's the life of Mr Bailey who suffered a spinal cord injury in a car accident. He has succeeded as a pilot, farmer, husband and best-selling author - all from a wheelchair. "He [Sam Bailey] is inspirational," Mr Carr said. "I guess, when you see people like that you don't have many excuses."
