Rowan Students Lend Helping Hand

Four Rowan University College of Engineering students are spending this year not only lending a helping hand but building a “Helping Hand” as well.

Caitlin Terry, of Vineland; Michele D’Alessandro, of Sea Girt; Ronald Mills, of Upper Deerfield; and Nadyali Soto, of Vineland, all seniors, are designing and constructing a piece of equipment that will enable people with limited hand mobility to write easier.

Dubbed “The Helping Hand,” the device resembles a stingray and features a handrest adapted to hold writing implements. The goal of The Helping Hand is to enable users to fully and effectively operate a writing instrument by generating motion from their forearm/shoulder.

The inspiration for the device came from Terry’s grandfather, Robert Terry, of Haddon Heights. The elder Terry has a hand disability that makes it difficult to do tasks most people take for granted, such as signing checks.

“I knew my Pop Pop’s hand condition was getting worse, but it wasn’t until I went to visit him last year that I noticed his inability to hold even a pen,” the younger Terry said. “I started to think about attaching something to his hand or fingertip, but then I saw his remote lying on the table and it gave me an idea. I asked my Pop Pop to lay his hand on the remote and slide it around on the table. He was able to generate motion from his forearm/shoulder area and did not have to worry about gripping with his fingers. I asked if he could operate a computer mouse, and he said he could. Those observations lead me to the idea of designing a pen/pencil holder out of an enclosure similar to a computer mouse. I figured that if his problem was associated with gripping I could design a rolling enclosure that he could just lay his hand on and all movement operations would come from the forearm/shoulder region.”

At the beginning of the project, the students researched hand and wrist mobility issues, studied medical websites, spoke with people with hand injuries, sketched out ideas and conducted market research. They went on to undertake three phases of development -- including making a model out of children’s clay -- before finally deciding on an ambidextrous stingray-shaped holding device that glides on ball bearings that provide a fluid motion. Recently, they produced a polymer prototype of the device. Soon they will ask occupational therapists to evaluate the device with some of their patients and work on refining the design. Eventually, they hope to market The Helping Hand.

Work on The Helping Hand is a good example of the approach Rowan Engineering has toward education. Terry and D’Alessandro are Civil and Environmental Engineering majors, and Mills and Soto are Mechanical Engineering majors. They bring a multi-disciplinary approach to tackling a project, which is a hallmark of Rowan Engineering.

“As students we tend to approach problems and design issues through knowledge that is specific to our major. By working with students from other disciplines, we learn to solve problems through a different set of eyes. Utilizing all the different points of view that are available on a multidisciplinary project allows us to experience a real life project situation and to create a more-well rounded design,” D’Alessandro said.

Dr. Hong Zhang, Mechanical Engineering professor, and Dr. Mark Weaver, director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Rowan, have advised the students on the development of The Helping Hand. Terry has attended Weaver’s Venture Development class to obtain more information about marketing the product. The College of Engineering’s Venture Capital Fund provided the students with up to $2,500 to undertake the project.

“The encouragement of faculty and the opportunity to attend entrepreneurialship classes has really opened the door for me to pursue the idea for The Helping Hand. Most engineers come up with ideas and product improvements, but without the help of entrepreneurial advisors, most of those ideas would probably stay in the classroom. And Rowan Engineering, with the venture fund, has provided students with the means and leadership to pursue new business ventures,” Terry said.

Article continues below

---

advertisement

---

Author: Press Release - Rowan University.