Students at Robert E. Lee High School designed and built a custom solution for Cole Jones allowing him to keep his hands safe and clean while he learns to use his wheel chair. Pictured in back row are Robert E. Lee HS teacher Jonathan Richards, student Jose Cuevas-Ramirez, Zach Jones and Melissa Jones. Kneeling are Miguel Dominguez and Alexander Flores and in front row, Cole Jones.
Photo by Carrie Pryor-Newman
BY: DR. NORMA MARTINEZ, GCCISD DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Facebook is where this story begins. Lauren Hoyt, teacher at Robert E. Lee High school, came across a post created by Melissa Jones seeking assistance in adapting her son’s wheelchair. She shared the plea with Jonathan Richards, CTE teacher at Robert E. Lee High School, knowing this was a problem his students could help solve. Mr. Richards reached out to Zach and Melissa Jones and found that their son, Cole, needed a modification that would help keep his hands safe and clean as he learned to use his wheelchair.
Project Cole, what the project was nicknamed, was completed in 4 weeks. STEM Academy students in Mr. Richards’ Robotics and Intro to Engineering classes were tasked in designing a modification that could be added to Cole’s wheelchair. Students were broken up into teams and given a timeline and constraints. They spent about two weeks going from planning to sketching, to modeling with cardboard to making parts in AutoCAD. Mr. Richards then printed a few parts as part of the prototype process for each group. Students created a Slides presentation explaining the entire design process including screenshots and photos of notes explaining their concepts. The presentations were emailed to Mr. and Mrs. Jones and a couple of presentations looked as if the modification met their expectations the best. Those two were then finalized and created to present to Cole’s family. The winning design, an arm rest that serves as a wheel cover, was created by Alexander Flores, Miguel Dominguez, and Jose Cuevas-Ramirez.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones made the 45-minute drive to Lee High School in October and were thrilled to show their son the modification. Mr. Richards and his students revealed the design and talked about the process. They showed the Jones family how the modification worked and how they were able to easily remove the piece for travel and storage. “This is perfect,” Mrs. Jones explained, “We had reached out to the wheelchair manufacturers, and no one could help us. They didn’t have what we needed.”
Project Cole highlights the remarkable achievements high school students at Goose Creek CISD are accomplishing in their classrooms, surpassing what larger companies might find challenging to accomplish. Offering real-world experience to students is among the valuable contributions that the various classes can make. Students looking for more information regarding the different programs and academies the district offers can visit: https://www.gccisd.net/ and click on Students & Parents.