EagleTribune.com, North Andover, MA

Merrimack Valley

Teen machines help youngsters with special needs

By J.J. Huggins
Staff writer
Published: June 2, 2008

METHUEN — Ian Lucas flashed a big, toothy grin when he pushed his new walker across the classroom.

The three-wheeled walker constructed from PVC pipe was a gift from some Methuen High School students. It will allow the 14-year-old with cerebral palsy to carry his own food through the lunch line.

"We wanted to find something where he'd be independent," said Lucas' teacher Shannon Clough, who helped the students figure out what to build to help their younger disabled peers.

Clough teaches special needs students at Comprehensive Grammar School where Lucas is in the eighth grade. Aides used to help Lucas carry his lunch tray through the line in the cafeteria.

But then Lucas became the client, so to speak, of Methuen High students in a new extracurricular engineering group. The students built the walker and bolted a plastic tray to the top, so Lucas has somewhere to put food.

They did not get class credit or win prizes. But the joyful expression on Lucas' face was a perfect payoff.

"That's awesome," said Josh Eskel, 16, one of the teens who built the walker. "It's so nice to give back to the community."

Michael Sprague, 17, said he felt "a lot of relief" when he saw Lucas use the walker.

"We'd only been here once, so we weren't sure how it was going to work out," he said.

The group of Methuen High students entered the noncompetitive Assistive Technology Design Fair at University of Massachusetts Lowell earlier this month. Their task was to meet elderly or disabled people, learn about a problem they have and build a device to make life easier for them. Nine students participated in teams of three, according to emerging technologies teacher Larry Lambert.

The fair's rules barred the students from spending more than $150 on their project.

Kristen Bateson's team built a coloring table for Gabe Bisono, 13, who has Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and is hearing impaired.

Bisono, a seventh-grader, involuntarily jerks his hands, making it hard for him to color. So Bateson's team built a coloring table with hand strap to keep Bisono's hand in place long enough to let him draw. They made the table out of wood, a countertop and a piece of Plexiglas from the high school's hockey rink.

Again, the students had to be frugal, because they could not spend more than $150.

"A lot of our stuff is recycled," said Bateson, 17.

They fastened a glove into a groove in the Plexiglas. Bisono's hand can be secured in a glove, and he can move his hand vertically and horizontally across the coloring board. But they discovered a flaw when they saw Bisono pull his hand free.

"I want to make the glove smaller," said Francesca Garofalo, 18, who helped built the table.

Another team built a communication device for a Laura Nowacki, 12, a seventh-grader in a wheelchair. Fair organizers recognized it as one of five "exemplary" devices. That's quite an honor, considering there were 43 projects shown at the fair, according to Lambert.

Hady Saade, 17, Andrew Burbine, 18, and Matt Cook, 18, built what they call the "Head Activated Messager" for Nowacki.

Her family and teachers can record up to four 20-second messages on the machine. Nowacki's teachers tinkered with it and recorded the everyday sayings, "What's going on?" and "Hello, how are you?"

The recorder is connected to a soundboard and two speakers. The control can be connected to an arm on Nowacki's wheelchair that sticks out next to the left side of Nowacki's face.

To control the messager, Nowacki presses her face against the control. She can play the first message by touching the control once, the second message by pressing the control twice, and so on.

The students wrote a one-page user guide for school staff. They spent about $140 to build the messager, and they used the Internet to find a lot of the pieces that they used.

The students began their projects in January and finished this month.

Methuen High students who participated in the Assistive Technology Design Fair

Andrew Burbine, 18, senior

Francesca Garofalo, 18, senior

James Carey, 18, senior

Hady Saade, 17, senior

Matt Cook, 18, senior

Josh Eskel, 16, junior

Michael Sprague, 17, junior

Kristen Bateson, 17, senior

Rodney Banyoya, 17, senior

Teacher: Larry Lambert

Photos