CLAYTON — Scientists are working toward giving people with disabilities the technology to move arms or objects just by thinking. Robots soon may help a stroke victim step properly or allow an amputee to climb stairs with ease.

People with disabilities and their family members and friends learned Saturday about the technologies just around the bend at North Country Access 2008, sponsored by North Country Cycling.

The event, held at the Antique Boat Museum, 750 E. Mary St., also gave about 70 people with disabilities an opportunity to kayak, canoe, sail and water-ski in the St. Lawrence River and to find out about other opportunities for enjoying the outdoors.

"I found some great places to go," said Eric S. Komar, a senior at SUNY Cortland. He'd like to take his all-terrain wheelchair to the International Paper John Dillon Park. The campground, which is at Long Lake and run by Paul Smith's College, is completely accessible.

"It's such a perfect setting," said Mark J. Danford. He and Stephen E. Spitz, who both use wheelchairs, traveled from Buffalo for the event.

They tried kayaking and canoeing on the outrigger. "It gets you away from the chair," Mr. Spitz said. "You get a little bit of freedom."

John D. Simeral is a research scientist at Brown University, Providence, R.I., and is one of the chief investigators of Cyberkinetics' BrainGate neural interface system. The researchers place a small chip on the area of the brain that controls movement, collect the signals that the brain sends and decodes them.

So far, the researchers have a computer that can control a cursor on a screen and, with programs, turn electronics on and off, move an empty wheelchair and spell words.

"There are a lot of enabling technologies that can be controlled by left-right commands even with our current understanding," Mr. Simeral said.

The technology still is in testing, and researchers are developing an implant that stays under the skin and uses wireless technology to communicate with the computer. But the testing they've done over the past 21/2 years has been encouraging. The initial training has been as little as 12 minutes for the four people involved in the tests.

Mr. Simeral said they've gotten close to perfecting the translation from brain signals to moving a cursor up, down, left and right on a screen.

For thousands of people whose brain and muscles don't connect through the spinal cord, the technology eventually could mean a greater level of independence. The researchers already have a contract with the Department of Veterans Affairs to work on a way to control a prosthetic arm.

Hugh M. Herr, the principal investigator in the biomechatronics group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, talked about the advances in leg prosthetics.

Instead of the traditional passive prosthetic, Mr. Herr's team is developing legs that operate like human legs. They are creating responsive, robotic ankles and knees that will give the power for a smoother gait using less energy.

So far, they've got a working prosthetic that is for one leg, below and above the knee. And his team has created a robot that matches the natural movement of one leg to correct the movement in the other. This will help those who have had strokes that affected walking.

The next step would be to use the commands from severed nerves to move the legs.

"We're rapidly approaching the time when bilateral above-the-knee amputees can walk," Mr. Herr said.

"I was so amazed," said Jan A. Fitzgerald, who runs a Tupper Lake program, Parents-to-Parents, that helps with networking and finding resources.

"What he was saying — it's putting all the pieces together."

North Country Access also included the presentation of a Segway, a free-standing, battery-operated transportation device, from Segs4Vets to Staff Sgt. Roy A. Mitchell, a career counselor with the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. The event was a Wounded Warriors Disabled Sports Event, so it included soldiers recently injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Supporters included the Northern New York-Fort Drum Chapter of the Association of the United State Army, T.I. Adventures of Clayton, the Hope Network of Pittsburgh, Pa., and the Universal Access Program of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.