Episode 197 - The TetraSki Story with Tanja Kari and Ross Imburgia
Didrik Johnck: [00:00:00] Greetings, thoughtful listeners, and welcome to another installment of the No Barriers podcast, hosted by Erik Weihenmayer. I'll pass the mic to him in a moment, where he's sitting with a pair of individuals that are innovating the rehabilitation process through their work with the University of Utah Health's Global Adaptive Program, aka the TRAILS program.
Tanja Kari and Ross Imburgia. Tanja, a four time Paralympic gold medalist, shares her personal journey as an athlete, the changing significance of her victories and her involvement advancing adaptive sports. Her dedication to the community and the memories she's cherished are an integral part of this conversation.
Ross, an engineer, now he takes us through the technical strides and the human stories behind the development of the TetraSki. It's possibly the most advanced ski we've ever seen for sure. It's designed for people with complex physical injuries or illness. Limited use of your hands or legs? You can control this through your breath, independently. Whatever you're doing, the ski is responding. You're in command. You're shredding again, maybe for the first time.
Remember, this is not merely a podcast. It's a window into what happens when barriers are broken and lives are transformed through resilience, innovation, and the relentless pursuit of progress.
I invite you to listen intently, reflect deeply, and perhaps discover within this conversation, a spark that ignites your own pursuit of a life without barriers. Thanks for choosing to spend your time with us. I'm producer Didrik Johnck. Let's begin.
Erik Weihenmayer: It's easy to talk about the successes, but what doesn't get talked about enough is the struggle. My name is Erik Weihenmayer. I've gotten the chance to ascend Mount Everest, to climb the tallest mountain in every continent, to kayak the Grand Canyon, and I happen to be blind. It's been a struggle to live what I call a no barriers life.
To define it, to push the parameters of what it means. And part of the equation is diving into the learning process and trying to illuminate the universal elements that exist along the way. And that unexplored terrain between those dark places we find ourselves and the summit exists a map. That map, that way forward, is what we call No Barriers.
Hey everyone, welcome to the No Barriers podcast. This is Erik Weihenmayer and we have two amazing guests today who have brought some incredible innovations to the world. Ross and Tanja, good morning. Thanks for being on this morning with me. Yeah, good to be here. Oh, it's awesome. So impressed by your work and by this, these incredible things.
the Tetraski, of course, is, getting all the attention. it's all over the media. You guys had an interview with the today show and it's just really great to see niche product like this getting so much attention in the world. I mean, it just has caught people's imagination, right?
It's like kind of this magical thing that,the world has just really grabbed onto and said, this is really cool. This is groundbreaking, right? It is
Tanja Kari: groundbreaking and it's been taking a few years for us to get to this point, but Right now, there's basically more demand to this device that we can actually respond right now, which is a positive problem, I would say, or challenge.
But,there's a completely new generation of athletes coming out of this and they are demanding having the opportunities to do ski independently. And that whole independent is the key word in this. So it's been great to, to see the progress and, we are super happy to see what's happening.
Erik Weihenmayer: And we're going to talk all about the Tetra ski, of course. and actually some of your other cool products too, but, first Tanja, so you're a Paralympian yourself. You were like a gold medalist and Nordic skiing, total badass, man. So that personal history must. Must be important as you're looking at adaptive technology, especially in the recreational world, right?
that probably gives you an advantage, right? Because you have a connection or maybe an increased empathy or maybe more of a personal stake in, in, in what you guys are creating.
Tanja Kari: Absolutely, Eric. being an athlete and, Having the opportunities to do all of the sports that I've done in my life, especially Nordic skiing in this case.
was everything to me and is everything to me. And, and the opportunity here is the key word. I, as an, as a competing athlete, it's pretty easy to be super focused on yourself. And to some degree, you have to be focused [00:05:00] on yourself too. if, you're going to be aiming to be on top of the result list, but after, especially after my career, Getting involved in this program.
It was easy to realize that, that, that was my competitive career and it's phenomenal and create I'm grateful for every single opportunity, but at the same time, I'm realizing that. There's so many people who never has even had the opportunity to pursue anything that I was able to pursue. So it has really become very personal to me at the same time here.
So my first is very personal to a degree that I, I believe that everyone. should be able to have the same opportunity I had. and that's why I'm super excited to be working on this
Erik Weihenmayer: program. It's really quite a blessing, right? When your life and your work are so personally connected. I think that, that does seem like an advantage and you've been called like Finland's like best adaptive athlete, like amazing.
and I believe if it's okay to ask, you're an, are you an arm amputee?
Tanja Kari: Yeah. Yeah. I have, my, my right arm is missing below elbow. So you know, having the elbow is everything in this case. It is a minor impairment, in terms of cross country skiing, Nordic skiing. Yeah.
Erik Weihenmayer: Cause you're pushing off
Ross Imburgia: of both arms.
Yeah. Yeah. I use.
Erik Weihenmayer: So how the heck do you do that? What's your adaptation?
Tanja Kari: I use a one pole. That's my, yeah. So I obviously try out a few things, in my life, but, I ended up skiing faster with one pole and that's it.
Erik Weihenmayer: But from my perspective, which is I know nothing, like it would seem like just pushing off a one pole, you'd be like turning the opposite way all the time.
So you obviously have a lot of compensation. You've, you learned to, to do an even push that pushes you, propels you forward some way and and it makes you centered.
Tanja Kari: I was pretty perfectionist in Nordic skiing and I mastered all the techniques between classic and skate and the degree actually where the able bodied national team was trying to learn after me, which was great.
But that's also one of those things, regardless whether you are adaptive athlete or able bodied athlete, without grade. any injuries,you set your goals and you're perfectionist with what you do. You love what you do. And you can get to the point where literally my arm didn't affect the technique at all.
Like my lack of arm, I guess I should say. And obviously you can always, play with the idea, how fast would you, and this was asked from me a lot of times, like how fast would you ski if you had two poles? And I, told everyone, I don't know, but I can guarantee I wouldn't be
Erik Weihenmayer: slower. Would some amputee arm amputees use a prosthetic hand that like locks onto a pole or something?
Did you try that technique? Cause I imagine it's an iterative process.
Tanja Kari: I did, but that at that site ended up always be a little lacking and slower than the other side with the full arms. we figured out that. This is my best set up and that's it. And I literally haven't missed another arm in my life.
Erik Weihenmayer: one more question for you, Tanja, before I bring, Ross on and ask you a bunch of questions. so we're going to talk about the Tetra ski as this, how it really brings skiing to the next level for those who are, have high injuries and so forth and less mobility. but just go through like the history of adaptive.
Technology and skiing. Cause I understand like para paraplegics use mono skis, folks who are higher injuries use bucket skis. yeah, tell, talk it through, and then obviously in the Nordic world too.
Tanja Kari: Yeah, it's easy to reflect this from the Paralympic world. And I love to look at this from that perspective too, like in the Paralympic games and in the program right now, what is available is mono skiing.
And that's it for those who don't do stand up skiing.
Erik Weihenmayer: And a visualization for those, that's a person who's a paraplegic usually, right? And they have one ski under them. It's usually a fat
Tanja Kari: ski, right? Yeah, one ski under them and then all triggers in their hands to, to help with the steering and balance.
And then, then the next step is stand up skiing. There's VI class, visually impaired and typically happens with the guide and then, or it's,above, below knee amputee with, stand up out triggers,
Erik Weihenmayer: but then I ski with my guide. He's out in front yelling directions. And, he has this thing we call belt blaster.
Actually, we call it a butt blaster. It's the official name is a belt blaster, but. And it projects his voice back at me. So yeah, so I know that side pretty well. Yeah,
Tanja Kari: and that guide athlete relationship is extremely crucial and a total piece of art. [00:10:00] um,and, that's where it has ended in the recreational side.
There's by skis and,we see a lot of these, totally dependent by ski lessons where there's two tethers guiding people down the hill on downhill skiing. and that has been it. there's this call so called snow cart device. Which has enabled, individuals with higher, level spinal cord injuries like cervical 5 6 completes, but you still need fairly good hand function to be able to operate the kind of the arm, bars aside you to steer the skis, but that has been it.
There's absolutely, there hasn't been anything else for these individuals to ski. Independently here. That's the key word. Like I mentioned earlier, you can always get a totally dependent rights down the hill. And we hate that whole concept. If we have the technology in today's world and the professionals that we have here, we've been changing that.
that's where Ross has been playing a big role. And that's how we found Ross and started the Tetra ski project. and then there's other devices like the Tetra watercraft. And now we are actually entering cross country skiing world a little bit too with these, devices. it is totally changing the culture of adaptive skiing, sailing, hopefully cross country skiing in the future.
And literally giving people tools to be independent, both on a recreational level and competitive
Erik Weihenmayer: level. Yeah. And by the way, I have a personal story,Melissa Simpsons, who's part of our No Barriers community, she has cerebral palsy. She goes out skiing a few times at Breckenridge Outdoor Educational Center or would challenge Aspen.
And, usually she's in a bucket ski, but she used the, not the tetra, the other one, the, craft? Snow cart. The snow cart, thank you. Yeah, she used the snow cart. And she said, and this was two weeks ago, she said for the first time, she skied independently. That was the first time in her life she was skiing independently.
Now, They still had a tether on her, but it was just for safety. She was skiing independently and I can't tell you how thrilled she was to be doing
Tanja Kari: that. Yeah. Those devices actually came from us. They have now the Tetra ski and along that came to snow cart too. So just the snow cart is a level that has been missing from a lot of programs.
And the Tetra ski is the next level, a lot of, good, snow cart instructors make a good Tetra ski instructor. So they're almost like a hand in hand, type of a thing right now.
Erik Weihenmayer: So for those who have less use of their trunk and arms and so forth, less mobile. this new Tetra Ski is the ticket and Ross tell me, so talk about the technical aspects of it.
I understand there's joy, a joystick for those who can use that. There's a puff and sip system. Describe all that for everyone. Cause it's super cool.
Ross Imburgia: So yeah, at its essence, it's, two electric actuators. controlling each ski separately. So it's not just like the, the snow cart where a lot of times you'll put on a bar that,holds each ski together and turns them in unison.
The Tetra ski is fully independent, so we can go completely parallel. We can go full wedge. We can go full left and full right, just using the electric actuators for each ski. And control wise, we actually run multiple different control systems. As you mentioned, for people that have the hand and arm function, they can run a joystick and we have different levels.
a lot of times you don't want to throw people right into the unlocked version of the device. So we can actually simplify things using the software on the ski and, just say, focus on left and right turns. And then when they get good at that, we can speed the skis up. We can enable them to adjust the wedge angle and the turn aggressiveness as they're skiing, and uncork these higher functional levels of the device.
And then for people that have no motor function, we run the sip and puff system. So that's using the breath control into a tube. And it basically just detects positive and negative pressure and controls the skis accordingly with a lot more software magic that happens in the background. So that's the essence of the device, but it's, it obviously can get a lot more complex than
Erik Weihenmayer: that.
And how do you keep it intuitive? You know what I mean? Because skiing is like an intuitive sport eventually when you get good enough. And so how do you like, how would one remember Oh God, I got a wedge, but how do I do that again? You know what I mean? that must be part of the engineering process to try to make things for the user as simple as possible, right?
Ross Imburgia: Ross. So I just mentioned that we can, unlock new levels of the device. So overall, there are essentially 12 different skill levels, on the Tetra ski itself. And a lot of times, especially people that don't have a skiing background, don't really understand, like what the skis are doing and how that affects the performance of [00:15:00] the device.
Or like I said, at the simplest level, we can just have it steer left and right and the skier and the instructor can do all the other magic that happens. And just allow them to focus on their turning, especially as I'm sure, from skiing, your line choice down the hill is very important.
And when you start mixing in varying terrain and varying snow conditions, along with, controlling the skis at a high level, it can get overwhelming for people. so we do unlock new levels of the device as someone gets better. And I actually really liked that aspect of it because it is challenging.
it's not as simple as just getting in a wheelchair and driving it. Not that's necessarily simple, but you are utilizing the terrain. You're utilizing the snow conditions. You're utilizing the shape of the skis. and at the higher levels, it is very challenging and it's something that takes a lot of skill to operate.
So
Erik Weihenmayer: I asked, my friend, Melissa, I said, the most important question of skiing. How do you stop? And she said, Oh yeah, you just pull back on the poles. Is that right? Or did yeah.
Ross Imburgia: So that's for the snow cart. And that actually has two spikes that kind of drive into the snow. The Tetris doesn't have those.
but it's really easy. We usually instruct people to just turn to a stop and that's one of the things we teach. So turning across the ball line and you'll come to a stop pretty quickly that way. You can also pull back on the joystick and it'll go into a very aggressive wedge. That, won't stop you immediately, but it's good for lift lines and cat tracks and stuff like that.
So there, there's a
Erik Weihenmayer: few different ways. And so is it like a little bit like Ironman where you guys get on the ski and test it out and so forth? are you guys Guinea pigs or how does that work? I
Ross Imburgia: was for years and years, the early days of development. The software wasn't reliable, the electronics weren't reliable, the mechanical aspects of things weren't entirely reliable, and I was the guinea pig, and there were, there was a couple year period where I refused to even be strapped into it because I would need to bail out at any time if it glitched.
now I actually don't get on Snow for testing that much, and It's like a gift and a curse, but the technology is so reliable and, it works so well that I'm not doing a ton of development on Hill, except when I'm doing kind of annual firmware updates and trying to test new things and tweak things, but they're out there being used, constantly every day, almost throughout the country and the world.
And they work really
Erik Weihenmayer: if you're not the guinea pig, then, do you have a way for people to give feedback, and, as they're using it, do you have test subjects and so forth that are your iterative, humans? Yeah,
Ross Imburgia: absolutely. And again, after I was the guinea pig, we had a few willing participants through our program here at University of Utah called Trails, That volunteered and they were really crucial to the early development of the software and the controls and everything like that.
one of them is Brian McKenna, who was in that, today's show or the Ellen show podcasts that, we were on early on. And then, even to this day, like nothing has ever finished. So I'm getting feature requests all the time. And a lot of times, As an able bodied person, I don't think of a lot of things that people need, when it comes to controlling this device.
as the, the number of users and skiers goes up, they're sending us ideas constantly. And I'm trying to implement as many of them as I can, practically, into the technology to,
Erik Weihenmayer: Maybe this is a hard question, but Ross, was there like, can you give me an instance where like maybe there was a thought that you didn't have and somebody gave you an idea and you were like, Oh yeah, damn, that's a good idea.
Let me, let's try that.
Ross Imburgia: A lot. a specific instance. The early on development of the sip and puff system was big for that. the initial version kind of just mimics the sip and puff controls that you would see on a wheelchair. And we quickly realized that was not going to work. this is a very dynamic piece of equipment that requires extremely fast reaction times and stuff like that.
So Brian, the individual I talked about earlier, he was the first sip and puff user And he basically got in it with the old system and was like, throw all this out, this is not going to work. And this is what I need to see from it. And he was really instrumental in that early sip and puff development because it is a unique control that does not work with, the wheelchair controls
Erik Weihenmayer: do not work with.
cool. Tell me about Dr. Rosenbluth. Dr. Rosenbluth. So is he was the founder of TetraDapt?
Tanja Kari: Yeah. So Dr. Rosenbluth has been with the University of Utah since 2001. And, he's our, spinal cord injury, doctor here.
Ross Imburgia: And
Erik Weihenmayer: so he's a, like a surgeon.
Tanja Kari: He's not, he's rehabilitation doctor. [00:20:00]
Erik Weihenmayer: Got it. Okay.
Tanja Kari: Got it.
But he's background, he was actually adaptive, downhill instructor before his school of medicine, years, and actually the adaptive skiing did inspire him to go into medicine. but, from the beginning, it's been super important for him to be able to offer his patient opportunity for recreation and active living.
Erik Weihenmayer: Because a lot of times doctors, I'm just maybe being unfair, but a lot of times doctors like that. They're not involved in the recreational, life after rehab, their role ends there. and but he, different than that, was interested in life after rehabilitation, life, as a person living with a disability.
Tanja Kari: Yeah, absolutely. He's different than he is. He, obviously he values a lot and thinks highly about the whole rehabilitation process in the rehab setting and such, but the real life starts when you're discharged from these places and that life to some degree matters even more. but we can obviously keep the tools for that life already here, but then we have this program in place, which is literally for us continuum of rehabilitation.
And it is the most crucial continuum of rehabilitation. And then,his patients did challenge him very early. yeah, that's great. If we have all of these devices, but I'm not going to be able to do anything with those. And, that, that sparked this, motivation and interest to, to develop more equipment that can enable these people to be more independent and actually do recreation instead of, I think one of the best ways that.
Some of our participants have put this is Hey, I'm not a luggage anymore. I'm an actual athlete who can be in charge of my own recreation.
Erik Weihenmayer: and so the rec, recreation, sailing, skiing, in a way, I guess I'm thinking, listening to you, it's kind of part of the rehab process, right? There is a blurry line between rehab and life, right?
Tanja Kari: Absolutely. it's continuum of rehabilitation. It's part of this is it's as important part of. Of the process as anything else, OT, PT, speech, whatever goes into the process, this is part of it and important.
Erik Weihenmayer: And that's a big step. that's a big piece and we did talk about this, but just to emphasize it more in the past, somebody with a high spinal injury or less mobility, they would be tethered.
They would be going for a ride, which is fine, right? I guess like you'd have two instructors maybe behind controlling. The bucket. and again, if that's, your only way into the outdoors, wonderful, more power to you. But this Game Changer enables people to ski independently, which,maybe people don't realize how important that is for somebody with a disability to feel independent, like they are under their own power and agency,
Tanja Kari: right?
That is exactly true. and we hear this feedback all the time and, we did recreational skiing in the Tetra ski for years and. Then we started to push the competition in this as well. and honestly, we had no idea what kind of a response we would get a couple of years ago when we launched our first, slalom race in the Tetra ski, but the response is incredible and these skiers are loving to be identified as an athlete and being able to set competitive goals and compete.
Yeah. So that's a completely another level of things that, that we are pushing. and, no one's asking Eric us to do this, No one's asking. It is the right thing to do. And it is so needed. And, and we are just loving doing everything we can to make this happen.
Erik Weihenmayer: It's cool to see you guys opening those doors.
Tell me a story like a Brian or somebody who is using the Tetra ski and Their experience.
Tanja Kari: So from recreation to competition, obviously we have both sides right now and, everyone's feedback is the same that they are in control, they are in charge, whether they're sipping and puffing or using the joystick or with the hand or with a chin or with a toe, we've been implementing multiple ways.
They are loving being in charge, whatever they are doing. The ski is. Is responding to take commands and they clearly feel like they are in chargeand the person behind, yes, there is a person behind as an emergency break. And I'm not sure, Ross, if you mentioned the, remote control yet, but we have a remote control that the instructor has that is.
A, absolutely needed if there's some kind of a failure in the system, which hasn't happened. It is a great teaching device.
Erik Weihenmayer: It's the first [00:25:00] rule of outdoor adventure is redundancy just in case you want us plan B. Yeah. I know that from all of my adventures. Yeah. Yeah.
Tanja Kari: And the thing is that I think what is at the end of the day, the most important thing is this, that whoever the individual is who is loving this is now setting goals and making plans around sports and recreation, active living, instead of having no opportunities
Erik Weihenmayer: and options.
Yeah. Yeah. And, I guess this is for you, Tonya. I heard that they might actually have a Tetra ski in the Paralympics, like that might actually happened at some point, or is that kind of a pipe dream? That,
Tanja Kari: that, that's a dream still, but this, we are pushing, there's very few sports, as a matter of fact, I think it's pretty much PogChamp that is available for athletes with high support needs in the Paralympic program.
And I do believe. In the year of 2024, we should be doing better than that. We should have more alternatives. For athletes and, and that's also one thing with this competition concept that we are pushing and we are testing what are the right types of,slopes we can do this. What is the right type of, course is it giant slalom?
Is it slalom? How many gates to get a minute long, which is pretty ideal length for an Alpine race.we are testing all of this actively and doing all the groundwork that needs to be done. And if you look at the numbers, right now we have 36 athletes coming to Utah end of March to compete.
and if we talk about athletes with high support needs and these kinds of numbers, no one can say that this is not. This is not needed and there's no space for this. So there's a lot of work to do, but that is a dream of ours.
Ross Imburgia: I think, I think we are all very surprised just how competitive it was when we first did the race a couple of years ago.
we'd never done anything like this before. So we didn't really know what to expect. and whether that be making all the gates or, like how close the first, second, third place, et cetera, we're going to be. And it was really competitive.
Erik Weihenmayer: how many competitors did you have Ross?
Tanja Kari: How many do we have 18 who finished on the first year?
And right now we have 36 and we absolutely can't even take more. So we are hitting a point here where we have to expand this, this race event and probably run some. Some final qualification runs on the same week and such, which is great. And do you do it annually?
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. Cool. people, they hear this podcast, they could, reach out to you guys.
Yep. and figure out how to join the race if they're a good candidate. Yeah, the top three
Ross Imburgia: times the first year, were within, fractions of a second of each other. So it was definitely competitive and it showed us that this can absolutely work in a higher stage.
Erik Weihenmayer: So cool.
I hope that happens. Andso a university, like university of Utah, they, they create this technology, I'm assuming. And, and, but then it has to eventually become like a business, right? Because you got to market the device. you gotta get it out there. You gotta figure out the pricing around it.
and if you have six. Devices like it's really hard to scale up and make it a reasonable business model, right? So like how do you get over that hump and how are you guys doing that?
Ross Imburgia: It's not a reasonable business model
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, this is such a low volume piece
Ross Imburgia: of equipment That,we're not making money off of it.
And that was never the goal. The goal was to expand access to all these individuals that historically have had no option for adaptive sports and competition. So the university of Utah has been really good in that, I'm not an employee of touch it out. I'm an employee of the university of Utah and the university of Utah has enabled all this development to happen.
and they actually own the IP. And they licensed it back to Tetradapt, which is our business, but it's just a way to, to commercialize the tech and get it out there. But yes, we've been fortunate enough to have funding from lots of different grants. the Craig H. Nielsen foundation has been great.
they did all the initial R and D and they did. the first few rounds of prototype devices that we got out there, but I don't know if I'd call it a business model.
Erik Weihenmayer: We
Ross Imburgia: just, we just like to see the tech proliferate and to see it changing people's lives. And that's the most important thing to us right now. So
Erik Weihenmayer: as long as you can raise money for the R and D and and everyone can make a living and so forth. It's an amazing thing to bring into the world.
It's. It doesn't have to be like, huge stock on wall street.
Ross Imburgia: right, we're breaking even on every Tetra city and that's more that we could ever ask for it, And
Erik Weihenmayer: like how many [00:30:00] adaptive programs are there around the world? what would you see the estimate be in terms of how many you could get out there into the world?
Like what's the need? So
Tanja Kari: the need is growing and we have, Two, two Tetra skis in Switzerland right now. We have two in France right now. We have one in Canada. We have multiple in the USA. There's interest from Japan. There's interest from Italy. and going back to the, even the kind of the race concept and competing right now, we have a big nationals and an international race this year, since Canada is joining us too here.
But then once we get the Europe enrolled in the racing as well, and we can totally have a bigger international event, and that's the goal. That's how you grow the kind of the event side of this and the number of athletes and the number of countries participating, which is also very important when you are trying to push some initiative to get this into the Paralympic program as well.
Erik Weihenmayer: Of course. Cause that becomes like a grassroots, energy around like people saying, yeah, this is great. We need to get this in the Olympics. Yeah. That's so smart. Yeah.
Tanja Kari: and, the,but I think it's also a new way to look at this and this as a visually impaired athlete that without guide and the support system around you, you are very limited in what you can do.
Totally. and in this, there's no one, not one single individual owns this It's going to require a program around you.to make the skiing happening. So it is another way of looking at, the high support needs that athletes have and what type of athletes do we have to make things work and happen
Erik Weihenmayer: back to the partnership.
So university of Utah, TetraDapt, which is the, the commer the entity that's trying to get it out into the world, but trails, there's another department, Called trails. Or how did, yeah, I was just a little confused about that. How does that work? Is it just three entities,
Tanja Kari: right? Yeah.
Trails is an adaptive sports program out of the Craig H. Nielsen Rehab Hospital. And our focus is on, on complex physical disability. And, so we do have multiple adaptive sports programs and, but I think what makes us pretty unique is the access to healthcare professionals. And the immediate access for, first of all, our patients, obviously, who come through our rehabilitation process to get to know different sports and to do fitting processes and get plugged into that active living.
But at the same time, we don't require anyone to be our patient, in order to access the program. and the program is free of charge for our participants. So there's no but, yeah, the trails conducts all of the programming and also all of the testing for the Tetra Ski and these devices that Ross is building.
I think
Ross Imburgia: the, the easy way to say it is University of Utah develops it, TetraDap sells it, and Trails uses it. You
Tanja Kari: know, I.
Erik Weihenmayer: Look, some people listening might be like, Hey, we're getting too far into the weeds, but I think it's really important for people to understand when you're bringing something different into the world like this, it is a partnership.
You're not going to do it alone. it's a partnership between different entities and with different roles to play. so that's probably a really good lesson for people who are thinking about bring an innovation to the world in the adaptive world, especially,
Tanja Kari: right? It is absolutely true.
and not only what's happening internally here at the university of Utah, but also all of the partnering programs that we are training, because these, the Tetra ski training is pretty extensive for a day training for instructors and coaches. So that, that really builds relationship with different programs that are not part of the university of Utah, whether it's in Europe or.
Or here in the U S or in Asia or wherever we end up going. it really brings, more like closer collaboration between programs. and I think that has been one of the really cool part of this as
Ross Imburgia: well. Yeah. I mentioned earlier.how we're still adding features and stuff like that and how you just mentioned like the partnership between everyone, there are dozens, probably close to 40 or 50 highly trained instructors on this equipment all over the world.
And they are just as big of a part of the development process as some of us are here. they're using the equipment every day and they're seeing. What things can be improved and how things can be changed. And they are giving me that feedback and I am listening to it. So it's really
Erik Weihenmayer: everyone that is involved.
Yeah. Yeah. That's the extended rope team for sure.like I've gone through some bigger adventure processes. Like I learned to kayak and,I was going into my first. Class 4 Rapid, and I [00:35:00] had, we had developed these radios with this company, and they couldn't be pushed to talk because our hands are on the paddle, and they couldn't be the kind of voiced activation because you miss the first word always.
So they had to be this kind of duplex system. Anyway, it was a complicated thing, and we're testing. I'm, I go into my first Class 4 Rapid, and no radios, of course. They just stopped working a second before I went into the first class. massive wave. And so I was lifted my paddle up and I screamed to my guide, no, no radios.
And he just paddled up as hard as he could and got behind me and just started yelling his ass off. so I know how hard bringing these things to market is or getting them to work reliably. So talk just for the reality of it. How hard is it to do this? How hard is it? It must, there must be a lot of challenge.
Are you talking specifically
Ross Imburgia: about the development or about learning as an instructor to you?
Erik Weihenmayer: no, I'm talking about the development for sure. Yeah. Like for you guys for as an engineer. must there must have been some days where you're like, oh boy. I don't know what to do.
Oh, yeah
Ross Imburgia: Yeah, especially early on, I mentioned not strapping myself in I had to bail out a few times when it was just fully glitch out andlike the people were targeting to get in this equipment. They don't have the ability to bail out So it's crucial that type of situation, doesn't happen in the final version of the technology.
Erik Weihenmayer: So
Ross Imburgia: early on, I was wondering at times, is this ever going to actually work? is this going to work reliably enough where we feel good? About getting someone in this device that, can't bail out and can't, self rescue in an emergency. and so there, there were those first couple of years where it was pretty challenging, we'd have batteries die and we'd have components on the circuit board fry themselves and we'd have software completely glitch out and freeze up.
So it was just, breaking things down like problem by problem and solving each one of those problems.
Erik Weihenmayer: And not getting overwhelmed, I imagine.
Ross Imburgia: exactly. So as you do that, you might start with a list of 30 things that need to change. And you just focus on eliminating one at a time.
And as you do that, the device gets more and more reliable to a point where you actually feel good about it. And it, it took years. And even after we had participants with disabilities in it, those first days, First guinea pigs after me, we had times where we'd have to call ski patrol because the Tetra ski is just completely frozen and we couldn't get it down.
And so they'd have to come up with a snowmobile and pull us out. And each one of those times is a learning experience and, you fix it in a way that it won't break like that again. And then you just focus on what's next on the list. And it's not, it's not always just like engineering glitches like that too.
It's a piece of adaptive sports equipment and these are adaptive sports instructors. They abuse the equipment pretty heavily. So a lot of times things will break, not from any fault of me or, the underlying technology, but because it's getting. Thrown in a van and getting thrown on top of that, so even this year, I saw things break in new ways and we're always tweaking the design to, to try and make it the strongest and best piece of equipment that we can.
Erik Weihenmayer: It must be proud to, hear stories like Melissa getting out or, I know she was on an earlier, ski, but, or Brian, or these folks competing in your races. it must be really proud to, to see that come to fruition, right? Yeah, it's
Ross Imburgia: extremely impactful. there's been a lot of tears, happy tears involved, throughout the years, and it's cool.
It's cool to me when former skiers, maybe even skiers that had their injury while they were skiing, get in the ski, because that's just special to get them back in places that they may have memories of here in Utah. But I think it's equally impactful to see people that have never skied or never had the opportunity to ski in their lives.
And you're getting them, to the top of an 11, 000 foot peak somewhere they never thought they would be. so there's the personal aspect of the sports, but then there's just the experience in general that can just be so impactful to people.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. I imagine that becomes fuel to keep striving, right?
You guys have other products too. I, you guys have a sailboat, a Tetra watercraft. That's cool too. We don't have a lot of time to talk about that, but yeah. Tell me about some of the other cool things you're doing. So
Ross Imburgia: yeah, we do a sailboat. That's our other mature products. That's a kind of like on the market right now.
And that essentially uses.the similar same technology as the Tetra ski. So someone can control every single aspect of it independently, just using sip
Erik Weihenmayer: and puff. so cool. It does have a little quadriplegic can get in a sailboat and operate it independently. Yeah, absolutely. and
Ross Imburgia: at a pretty high level, so yeah, there's a couple winches to control [00:40:00] the sails.
There's a servo that controls the rudder. There's actually a little motor on it in case you get stuck. Or the wind dies or something like that, but very similar technology. and then we always have these pipeline dream ideas that, someday we'll have time to work on. So Tanja mentioned an adaptive, cross country ski.
That's what we're working on. That's actually a student project at the moment that we're sponsoring. And then, if it looks promising, I'll probably put more development time towards it in the future. And then we're, we're going to partner with this company called Tessier, or we already are partnered with them, but, they make a, adaptive mountain bike called the Trial.
And that's currently just manual control only, it's got handlebars, but we're going to add a similar sip and puff system. to the tree out, to allow it to be controlled independently, using sip and puff basically.
Erik Weihenmayer: That's going to be so cool. And then you'll start your mountain bike races and then, and everyone will sign some serious liability.
Tanja Kari: Yeah. Talking about liability. If we look at what's going on right now. So we have literally individuals who are on ventilators Doing Alpine skiing, racing, and that is pretty incredible. And, that, that's just describes the level of, commitment from them, first of all, I totally, I have such a huge respect on these athletes.
At the same time, the commitment we have to make, make, make this possible for people who absolutely never had an opportunity to do anything like this. So
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah, living fully is the top of the, dream list for most people, I think, not the limitations, not the ventilators, all that stuff.
they want to live and everybody wants it, whether you have a disability or not. And that's powerful. Transcribed Tanja, tell me as we end here, personal story, maybe it's cheesy, but how did it feel to cross the finish line with a gold medal?
Tanja Kari: it feels good. And it's funny you ask that because I think that to me, it changed along the years.
Like I was very fortunate to be able to compete in four different Paralympic games and I did get gold medals in all of those games. But I think that the meaning of the medal itself changed along the way. And the further on I went in my career as an athlete. The more it became for me to be completely one with my skis and with my performance and just pouring my absolute soul into it.
And it was giving so much back to me. And at that point, it didn't even matter what the color of the metal is. If I knew that I'm just totally one with this and. so that kind of, so there was more into it than the result list, if but it is, it's a beautiful thing.
And I think so many more people need to have opportunity to experience that. But yeah, I. Like I've said to many people,I have not wanted a second arm. I don't think I would have had these incredible opportunities if I did, or perhaps as an Olympian, I don't know who knows. And it's worthless to think about that.
But, yeah, those are just priceless, experiences and
Erik Weihenmayer: memories. Yeah. Yeah, it's because we're ending up here on I'll get cheesy for a second and tell you like I think it's so cool You come down from the mountain, you know from your skiing or Ross, you know you guys come together to use your life and your accomplishments and your Struggles to figure out how you're gonna use that to elevate the community in some way And, man, that is just so powerful.
I think that's what most people are striving for in life. So congratulations. And, I can't wait to hear more about, the progress of all your different,devices and especially the Tetris ski. So thanks for joining us guys. Yeah.
Ross Imburgia: Thanks for having us.
Erik Weihenmayer: Sweet. Thanks, everyone. No barriers.
Didrik Johnck: The production team behind this podcast includes producer Diedrich
Tanja Kari: Jonk. That's me. And audio engineer, Tyler Cottman. Special thanks to the Dan Ryan band for our intro song Guidance. And thanks to all of you for listening.
Didrik Johnck: If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, share it. And hey, we'd be thrilled for a review.
Show notes can be found at NoBarriersPodcast.
Tanja Kari: com. There's also a link
Didrik Johnck: there to shoot me an email with any suggestions or guest ideas for the show. Thanks so much, and have a great [00:45:00] day.
