Rice engineering students create devices to help children

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Rice University engineering students are putting their brain power to make a significant difference in the lives of children facing significant challenges.

Inside a single building at the school is where ideas are born. Students at Rice's Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen have toiled for more than three years designing a wheelchair that will give a young man independence.

"As soon as I met Pedro I knew that I couldn't let him down," said Michael Dimoff, a junior studying bioengineering at Rice.

Pedro Mendez, 15 was born with arthrogryposis. The condition robbed him of any fine motor skill and severely limits movement in all of his joints. He has been entirely dependent on others to get around, until now.

"Now I can go by myself, everywhere," Mendez said.

Mendez's wheelchair is one of more than 400 projects produced at the school over the last 6 years, each with a single goal.

"They have a real problem for which an engineering solution can make a difference," said Rice University's Ann Saterback.

The students begin by identifying the problem. Through a partnership with Shriner's Hospital for Children, they figure out what each patient needs.

"I have issues putting on clothes and shoes," said Shriner's Hospital patient Michael Batten. "If they can build these things, it'll help a lot of people!"

Then the students go back to the design kitchen and put their ideas to work. Through trial and error, they create unique solutions to real world problems. The design kitchen is about 18,000 square feet with virtually every tool imaginable.

"Whatever students can imagine in their mind they can kind of build and construct," Saterback said.

Such creations have been a robotic arm for a teen with disease so debilitating that he couldn't pick up clothes off the ground. Student teams work on these projects all year and the best compete in April at the annual Engineering Design Competition.

With each completed project, the students and the patients are rewarded. The students who created the wheelchair propelled by only arm movement for Mendez still remember the feeling of finishing it.

"Oh, I was so happy. I jumped up and down and almost cried," Dimoff said.

The result was a very grateful teen.

"I really, really, really with all my heart thank them for making this dream come true," Mendez said.

This program is proof that reality can be so much better than even a child's dream.

For more on the program, click here.