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Tempe high school students design remotes for people with disabilities

A design created by one of the students at Corona del Sol High School in Tempe for a person with a hand disorder.
Bridget Dowd/KJZZ
A design created by one of the students at Corona del Sol High School in Tempe for a person with a hand disorder.

Students at Corona del Sol High School in Tempe are designing remote controls for people with disabilities that affect their hands.

They used measurements of their own hands to design ergonomic TV remotes in Solidworks that will be 3D printed and tested.

Melissa Wendell teaches those students. She said they're making remotes both for people with prosthetic hands and those with various hand disorders.

“Some of the disorders I gave were a mallet finger, a trigger finger, there was some arthritis, there were some other types of diseases," Wendell said "A lot of them would have trouble with controlling of the thumb. Some have issues with the pinky and being able to hold something.”

She said the young engineers are trying everything from joysticks to spherical remotes. The 3D printing was made possible by a grant from SRP.

"SRP allows educators like me to have the creativity to bring in some of these products like 3D printers so students can see their designs that they have created an actually bring them to life," Wendell said. "That's not always the case in education."

Senior field correspondent Bridget Dowd has a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.