White City man building wheelchair-accessible ATV

A love of the outdoors and a power wheelchair are often at odds with one another. That's why Keith Lucyk is building a wheelchair-accessible ATV.

Lucyk lives on an acreage near White City, Sask., where he loves to be out on the gravel roads with his dog. After putting lots of kilometres on his power wheelchair he wanted to build something more rugged.

"I'm really passionate about it," Lucyk told CBC Radio's Morning Edition on Wednesday.

In 2010, Lucyk got to work on designing the vehicle, teaching himself computer-aided design to model and create schematics. 

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Before starting to work on the ATV, Lucyk looked around for other options. All of them, though, required users to go from their chairs to the ATV: Not everyone is able to do that on their own. 

"That really eliminates a lot of the independence you'll have with the machine," said Lucyk. "I wanted it so you could just back your chair right into it and drive it just like you would a power wheelchair."

He said the machine will give people of all abilities real independence.

"It will really take a lot of limitations away, because I wanted to design this so I could do everything myself," he said.

Lucyk is currently crowdfunding for the final stretch of his project.

"I don't intend to profit off this at all," he said.

When the ATV is completed, the design blueprints will be available for anyone looking to build one for themselves.