GoBabyGo presents children with student modified toy cars
This event is free and open to the public.
The children receiving cars are Angel, Zoey, Camila and Sutton.
Angel is a 4-year-old with cerebral palsy. He has difficulty moving his arms and legs and cannot crawl or walk. His car is modified with a special car seat that will allow him to drive using switches activated by his head movement.
Camila is nearly 2 years old and has low muscle tone all over her body, which prevents her from crawling or walking. Doctors are still trying to determine her diagnosis. Students modified a 4-wheeler with a handlebar switch and a seat-mounted switch so that she can drive in a seated or standing position.
Zoey is nearly 1 year old and has recently undergone surgery for her club feet. She has arthrogryposis, which means that contractures in her wrists and hands prevent her from crawling. She will have a modified Jeep truck that she can control with an Arduino-powered joystick.
Sutton is a 3-year-old boy who has cerebral palsy that prevents him from walking or crawling and makes many movements hard to control. His car will be modified with a custom seat installed in partnership with the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation.
The GoBabyGo program is an applied learning experience that allows students to practice following a budget, measuring children and working with families, designing and selecting materials, learning new tools, troubleshooting and working in multidisciplinary teams.
To learn more about the program and projects, go to www.wichita.edu/gobabygo.
The mission of Wichita State University (www.wichita.edu) is to be an essential educational, cultural and economic driver for Kansas and the greater public good. Wichita State is a doctoral research university enrolling nearly 15,000 students and offering 59 undergraduate degree programs in more than 150 areas of study in seven undergraduate colleges. The Graduate School offers 45 master’s and 12 doctoral degrees that offer study in more than 100 areas. Wichita State’s Innovation Campus (http://wsuinnovationcampus.org/) is an interconnected community of partnership buildings, laboratories and mixed-use areas where students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs and businesses have access to the university’s vast resources and technology. For more information, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wichitastate and Facebook at www.facebook.com/wichita.state.
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Contact: Samantha Corcoran, educator, College of Engineering, 316-978-6301 or samantha.corcoran@wichita.edu.