Adapted Cars Presented to Area Children May 5

Forty University of Scranton students have spent time this semester soldering, drilling, sawing and sewing – and doing whatever else they deemed necessary – to adapt commercially available ride-on cars for use by 11 area children with limited mobility.

The students, who are majoring in occupational therapy and mechanical engineering and range from first-year students to graduate students, will present their altered vehicles to the children at a special community event in the Byron Recreation Center on Sunday, May 5. The students are members of the inaugural chapter of The University of Scranton’s Go Baby Go, which is a national research, design and community outreach program that provides modified ride-on cars to children with limited mobility.

Through the program, the students use readily available, low-cost items to adapt the toy vehicles.

“The students used adaptive switches from Home Depot, swim kick pads and foam noodles, plywood and other materials. They learned to drill, solder, saw and upholster as they adapted their children’s vehicle. They even used a 3D printer to create some parts,” said Stephanie DeNaples, OTD G’17, a faculty specialist in the Occupational Therapy Department at the University who oversaw the project and Scranton’s Go Baby Go chapter with support from the Edward R. Leahy Jr. Endowment.

To recruit children to participate, Dr. DeNaples, who graduated from Scranton and worked as an occupational therapist before joining the faculty, reached out to various agencies and families at the University and in the greater Scranton community.

Dr. DeNaples then formed the 40 interested occupational therapy students into teams of six or seven that included graduate students in each group to serve as team leaders. Each team was assigned a child/child’s car. She also recruited several mechanical engineering students to help with some of the electric wiring needed to incorporate adaptive switches to start the vehicles.

Dr. DeNaples said the occupational students first met the children in February, when they surveyed their preferences for different types of motorized cars, and assessed the children’s fine and gross motor abilities and measured them for fit into vehicles. They were also attentive to the children’s preferences, such as their favorite colors, which they also used in their designs.

“The student teams figured out what was needed to adapt the car for their child, and how to do it,” said Dr. DeNaples. “They worked together to come up with solutions. They tapped into the knowledge and abilities each team member had to offer. They were amazing to watch. They are so clever and creative with their solutions.”

In addition to teamwork, Dr. DeNaples hopes the students learned to “see outside the box” and that the “possibilities are endless.”

“I hope they see what they can do,” said Dr. DeNaples. “They can change what they are given. They can come up with solutions to problems. They have a world of possibilities open to them.”

Community members are invited to join the Go Baby Go community event on Sunday, May 5, from 1 to 4 p.m., at which the children, aged one to 14, will see and use their adapted vehicles for the first time. The event is free of charge. Reservations are requested and can be made here.