Project by Bonney Lake students helps give disabled children mobility
Puyallup HeraldFeb 25, 2019
The senior at
"I work with a child that can only move one side -- that's the only side that works, everything else is limp," Petter said in an interview with
It's those kids Petter and her peers hope to help through a project aimed at giving mobility to patients in the Children's Therapy Unit at
The project is called a "mobility platform" and was designed by both Family, Career and Community Leaders of
It works like this: kids wheel their wheelchairs on top of a platform. Then, using technology developed by the First Robotics students, children manipulate and move the platform as they choose, turning their non-motorized wheelchair into a simulated motorized one.
"We're (working) with so many kids that have so many neuromuscular disorders that the only mobility that they have might be through their head, might be through one finger, might be through both their arms," said Petter, president of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America at
The platform is more versatile than other mobility methods, according to the students. Therapists don't have to take as much time tailoring controls of motorized wheelchairs used for testing to each student.
"This would make it much easier for both the therapist and the child to be faster, more efficient," Petter said.
"They can test this out and see how it works, because ... this allows any of them to just go up on here and test it out," Arline said.
The students started working on the project in November after Bonney Lake teachers
"They've been very specific about what they want in this mechanism,"
Arline said the platform was different than any other project he'd worked on.
"Normally, in Robotics, there's a lot of times a right way to do things and not a right way to do things," he said. "With this ... we get to see what works and what doesn't."
The hardest part so far has been developing technology to allow patients with different abilities to use the chair, Arline said. For example, if a child only can move her head, the mobility platform would have to correspond to those head movements.
"They've already learned so much," Littlefield said of her students. "We were trying to find something like this, and we can't find anything that's like it, and I think that's why (
Currently, the project is still in design and prototype status. The hope is to get it finished by the end of the school year. If the project is up to standard, it could be funded past its prototype.
"I think it's a great foundation project that could be a collaborative effort for years to come," Tonsager said.
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