By Roger Phillips
Record Staff Writer
May 11, 2013 12:00 AM
Article from http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130511/A_NEWS/305110316
STOCKTON - Yael Castillo slipped on a prosthetic arm the other day and flexed the device's two prongs to pick up tennis balls and toss them into a bucket, to lift a can of soda and drink from it, even to grasp a pen and sign his name.
Was there anything he couldn't do with the artificial limb?
"Maybe use a touchscreen phone," Castillo said.
The prosthesis cost $19.44 to build. It was designed and constructed by Castillo and fellow Stagg High School students Brooklyn Omstead, Anthony Nichols and Gabriel Zuniga. Today at University of the Pacific, Stagg's prosthetic arm just might pick up one more thing. It might grab the Math Engineering Science Achievement, or MESA, state championship.
"For less than $40, they had to design something to replace the arm and hand," explained Stagg's MESA teacher, Andrew Walter.
Last year, Stagg students including Omstead won the national MESA championship with the wind turbine they built. This year, MESA participants nationwide were called upon to design and build prosthetic arms that could be of use to the roughly 65,000 people in the United States who annually undergo an amputation. If Stagg's team wins today, it will try to repeat its MESA national championship next month in Portland, Ore.
The Stagg foursome designed and built its prosthetic device, starting in November, over the course of more than 700 hours. As if designing the gadget wasn't enough, MESA competitions require students to write a seven-minute speech about their creation and to create a display board and a PowerPoint. Writing and presentation skills are as important a part of the MESA process as the scientific aspect.
"They turn out to be a fairly well-rounded group by the time they're finished," said Walter, whose MESA program has about 130 participants.
Stagg's prosthesis was fashioned from 26 different items, none of which cost an arm and a leg because the MESA projects are required to be built with thrift in mind. Stagg's students used duct tape, air tubing, a bit of sofa cushion, PVC pipe, football padding, fishing line and 20 other materials.
Though all of Stagg's supplies were donated, the students were required to price the items online and provide documentation of the total cost of building their arm. Walter said the students also received another donation: a spare prosthetic arm from a Stagg teacher who is an amputee. From this, Walter said, the students were able to do "reverse engineering" as they conceived their own prosthesis.
Stagg High students are among more than 1,500 elementary, middle school and high school students from the region who receive support from Pacific's MESA center. The Stagg teammates competing today say learning by working on a project is vastly more engaging than sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture. They say the active learning develops their brainpower.
"It gives you a new way to look at things," said Omstead, a 16-year-old junior. "It teaches you to problem-solve. You can take that and use it in other situations and be more effective in the way you think."
There's also a practical benefit, Walter said, to getting students excited about science, technology, engineering and math - STEM for short.
"STEM fields is where it's at," Walter said. "STEM is where the United States unfortunately is falling farther and farther behind, and that's where most jobs are opening up."
Walter's students worked collaboratively to prepare for today's event. The 18-year-old Castillo, a senior, was the lead builder with assistance from Nichols, a 17-year-old junior. Omstead designed the team's academic display board. Zuniga, a 16-year-old sophomore, did the technical writing. In developing their prosthesis, the students learned about kinetic and stored energy, kinesiology and anatomy, among many other things.
"You get to test your ideas and see whether they work or not," Nichols said.
Zuniga added, "It's fun, and at the same time you get to learn new things."
Contact reporter Roger Phillips at (209) 546-8299 or rphillips@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at www.recordnet.com/phillipsblog.
Roger Phillips
Record Staff Writer
May 11, 2013 12:00 AM
Article from http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130511/A_NEWS/305110316