"You pedal it backward if you want to go back, you pedal it forward if you want to go forward," explains Joseph Cerniglia.
This is not your average video game. It is part of an average day for millions of Americans, their bodies or minds not fully able, a life most others won't ever fully understand. But some kids just might.
Dozens of children experienced a new exhibit at the Please Touch Museum called Access/Ability.
It aims to put kids in the shoes of those walk a different path, helping them understand what it is to be disabled; to require help to speak, to hear, or to get around.
"It is meant to build some empathy and also some understanding," said Stacey Swigart.
Each exhibit, from the sign language station, to the brail display, introduces children not only to the idea of disability, but to an individual for whom it is a fact of life, not only through displays and recordings, but by interactions with real people, facing real challenges, like Alphonso Battise, who volunteers from the nearby Inglis House.
"I have a motorized one, and that means I can get around like this, and I can spin around," said Joseph Battise.
The exhibit is designed to give kids a total sensory experience about what it's like to live without one of your senses like sight. The children are given blindfolds and walking sticks, and asked to experience the world as a blind person does.
"The goal is that in their lives they'll never know the difference," said Gavin Kerr, President, Inglis House.
Gavin Kerr has a son who became disabled when he was 13 years old. Now, as president of the Inglis Foundation, he helps and houses people who deal with disability every day.
Seeing a major step forward in fostering understanding and removing the obstacles that often prevents able people from knowing the disabled is something that will help everyone.
"We want the whole world to experience our community, because they are truly extraordinary people," said Kerr.
