Students Driven By Innovation 和 Desire to Help Others

“钱不是动机. Enable technologies I think is way more satisfying. Knowing that your product is helping the lives of people.” So says Oscar Reyes III, for whom innovation is a primary motivation. That’s why he 和 two other DU mechanical engineering students designed 和 built an adaptive seat for people with paraplegia.

Engineering student Samantha Phillips was part of that yearlong design-build team at the Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering 和 Computer 科学. “Craig Hospital came to us with the problem of trying to have one of their former patients come 和 participate in the Dragon Boat Festival held every year out at Sloan’s Lake in Denver. No past seat exists out there that will attach an adaptive seat to a Dragon Boat seat,” she says.

到三个季度, students worked on different phases of the project, with the final phase involving building, prototyping 和 manufacturing the seat.

“It’s great working with the students at the University of Denver,Deepa Dierickx说, an occupational therapist at Craig Hospital.

This is the fifth year DU has partnered with Craig Hospital, which works with people with spinal cord 和 brain injuries.

“Craig Hospital participates in a dragon boat festival every year, 和 this year 和 last year we had a couple of paddlers who are alumni of Craig 和 would benefit from the use of an adaptive seat — rather than just sitting on a seat-bench because they can’t maintain their balance in that position.”

会约翰斯顿, the third member of the student engineering team, was excited to take what he’s learned in the classroom 和 apply it to a real-life situation.

“It was my first engineering project where I worked with an actual, legitimate company rather than just doing a project in school. So, it was really interesting to get the feedback from the customer, [where] we usually just get grades.”

“It’s just fun to see 和 help them grow in their projects — to allow them to be able to hang out with actual real-life customers, 而不仅仅是他们的教授,Dierickx说.

约翰斯顿, 和其他队员一样, says it was great to provide options to people with paraplegia, to help them stay active 和 participate in recreational activities. “That’s part of what engineering is: Providing possibilities, 和 I think we’ve done that.”