Mechanical engineering students build accessible bike for boy with spina bifida

From the Herald-Citizen in Cookeville, Tenn.:

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Nine and a half-year-old Jonathan Smallwood (pictured) was all smiles Friday morning at Cane Creek Elementary when he took his first ride on his new, custom-made bike. Jonathan was born with spina bifida, a condition that affects his spine and makes walking impossible. And though he does own a wheelchair, it is hard to maneuver and Jonathan says he fears falling out.

His new bike is completely different. In addition to providing more stability in his seat, the bike is also completely controlled with the upper body by pushing and pulling on the handlebars.

"When he came home the day they had brought it by to let him and Melissa (Draper, his physical therapy assistant) check it out to see if he could get on and off of it, he came home that afternoon and said, 'Mom! Mom! I got my bike!' (It was just like) if you'd gave him a million dollars, like he'd won the lottery," said his mother, Johnie. "That's worth more to me than anything -- him just coming home and being just so excited because he got the bike."

The bike was custom made by Tennessee Tech professor Stephen Canfield's mechanical engineering students: Luke Dunnewold, Daniel Morgan, Hunter Bailey, Travis Purser, Justin Thompson and Chuck Davis. After the initial design the students spent between 80 and 100 hours on the project to get it ready for Jonathan before the end of the semester. Each semester Canfield has his class work on a project that will benefit a local child with a disability. Last year his class built a modified sewing machine and comfortable chair for an 8-year-old girl with spinal muscular atrophy who wanted to learn how to sew. The year before that a class created a customized walker for a 2-year-old girl who had a birth defect that affected her sense of balance and made it impossible for her to walk without assistance.

"Their task is to partner with a child with a disability," said Karen Lykins, TTU news bureau director. "And they either create things that don't exist because they're so customized or sometimes they're just so incredibly expensive to buy that it's just prohibitive. So the general idea is we're providing something that no one else can provide.

"(Canfield's) class is all about 'what good are you as an engineer unless you can apply it?'" With his new wheels, Jonathan will have increased mobility as well as a way to exercise his upper body. He spent much of his first ride testing out the steering and playfully bumping into the mechanical engineering students who had created the bike for him.

"The guys from Tech, they built for me and I liked it," he said. Jonathan will be graduating from Cane Creek Elementary this year and moving up to Avery Trace, however he promised to be careful not to run over any toes in his new school.

"Unless it's one of my friends," he added with a grin. Johnie says she and Jonathan's father, Jeff, and older brother, Joseph, are thrilled with Jonathan's newfound mobility and want to thank Tennessee Tech and the six students who have given him a new life with their college project.

"All of them earned an A+++!" she said.