Eyal Sherman's body is frozen in place.

He is unable to move or speak, and he needs a machine to do his
breathing for him.

''It has changed my life now that I can surf the Net and being able to find things out without having to depend on other people in my family,'' Sherman said electronically in response to a question. Sherman has been more than a successful project for the 2-year-old Really Neat Research Center, which is dedicated to helping people with disabilities gain access to computers and improve the quality of their lives.

''It was a little frustrating getting to where we are now because of all the trial and errors, but now that I'm into it, it's fun and I feel like I can't be without this system,'' Sherman said. The device is one of many the Really Neat Research Center has been tinkering during its two-year existence.

Among the others: SmartDesk, a computer system that allows a child to interact with it and provides a way to quantitatively measure their educational progress.

Tiny robots that will be used in land mine detection, replacing the current method that is similar to what is used to find buried metal.

Telemedicine, or developing ways to enable health care providers to share their expertise over the Internet.

But it is with the individuals that the center measures progress.

''Instead of seeing Eyal as a patient we were going to rescue ... We saw Eyal as a partner in development because he's very bright and he's incredibly disabled,'' said David J. Warner, the center's founder and philosophical force.

Warner developed an international reputation for the work he did with children with disabilities at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California.

Through its work with Sherman, the center was able to refine its NeatTools software, a visual programming package that can accept virtually any input or output and use data from the devices to communicate with the computer.

Sherman's paralysis was caused by complications from a lifesaving operation to remove a tumor from his brain stem when he was 4. His family and friends learned to read his lips but Sherman, after excelling in high school, is looking forward to college and for that he needed a better way to be understood.

Edward Lipson, a Syracuse physics professor who has been Warner's chief collaborator at the center, saw Sherman as the ideal challenge.

''We like to work with the individual, find out what the individual can do and then adapt our technologies to that, rather than coming up with some generic solution,'' Lipson explained. It has taken two years for the CRNR team to design a

computer-control ''JoyMouse'' device for Sherman, who can move his cheek, forehead and chin muscles.

''We're still trying to make improvements but this has been a truly satisfying experience; to open up the world to someone, it's indescribable,'' said Michael Konieczny, a recent graduate in industrial design who is involved in the project.

Konieczny and other students helped design widgits to hold cheek sensors and a chin joystick so Sherman could control the mouse. In true center spirit, the sensors are held against Sherman's cheeks using the severed, jointed arms from Power Ranger action figures, which are attached to Sherman's eyeglasses. The chin joystick is held in place on his chest by a tabletop extension arm. The CRNR continues to refine the device, aiming to simplify it so Sherman's parents can plug him in and also to make it portable enough for him to take it out of the house, Lipson said. ''They're always thinking of things to make for me, and other people like me, so we can use all kinds of electronics ... it has made me feel important,'' said Sherman, who dreams of using his flourishing ability to keep the statistics at basketball games.