Designing a difference: Wayne State College of Engineering students design swing for Carly
Designing a difference: Wayne State students design swing for Carly
By Molly Davidson
Dustin Chandler's 4-year-old daughter, Carly, loves to swing. But, as she gets older, he feared this simple pleasure would be taken away from her since the swing can only handle 25 pounds. Carly suffers from the rare neurological condition CDKL5, and her disabilities make it impossible for her to use a traditional playground swing. Five Wayne State University freshman engineering students-Ahmed Alhamdani, Jennifer Ferrari, Lance Harmer, Taylor Heilig and David Tes and industrial design student Steven Patterson designed a swing that can accommodate Carly as she grows. Now known as "the swing kings," Alhamdani, Ferrari, Harmer, Heilig and Tes started working on the project for their biomedical engineering class with Professor Michele Grimm, Patterson joined them as an independent study. "Our main goal of the project was to come up with a swing design that would enable users to continue using the swing as they grew older," Alhamdani wrote. "The Wayne State group of students really took an interest in it. They've been great, they deserve all the credit," Chandler said. "It's a neat thing. It's hard to describe that feeling to know they're so committed to helping people they've never met. It's something special."