Earlier this year, experts from Good Shepherd Rehabilitation accepted the opportunity to collaborate with students who were designing a product that increases inclusion for people with disabilities — a product that ultimately resulted in multiple awards.
Jacqueline Edelbaum, an engineering teacher at East Stroudsburg Area School District – North Campus, mentored an all-female team of four high schoolers to compete in this year’s Governor’s STEM competition. The competition challenges students to research, design and present a device or project that that will help build a better life for real Pennsylvanians.
Jacqueline reached out to Good Shepherd Rehabilitation to see if we could serve as the community collaborator for the team to ensure they were solving a dilemma rooted in the community.
The students chose to develop a new product for one of their classmates with cerebral palsy to help improve his inclusion into the school community. After interviewing him to understand his limitations and goals, they landed on creating a device that would allow him to drink water more independently. The students completed all of the device research, design, prototype and testing.
Along the way, they shared their progress with physical therapist Claire Fishman, occupational therapist Samantha Kintzly and speech-language pathologist Morgan Seibert, all clinicians from our Stroudsburg outpatient rehabilitation site. Claire, Samantha and Morgan provided professional clinical insights to help guide the development of the product and assist in making it successful.
“The students asked good questions, were very knowledgeable about the components they were using and acted very professionally for high school students,” Claire said. “They were a pleasure to work with. I had a good time.”
“They were very thoughtful and receptive to our feedback on their device,” Samantha said. “It was a great collaboration between all three [therapy] disciplines and the students.”
“They were very bright students and were prepared with questions and asked follow-up questions based on our initial thoughts/advice given,” Morgan said. “They had a great vision and were determined to make it successful. They were a pleasure to meet.”
The students ultimately made it into the final round of the state competition and ended up winning two awards – divisional winner in the medical category and the People’s Choice Award. Congratulations!