Miami's chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers created an easel for senior Matt Addison so that he could paint in his wheelchair.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) presented a remote-controlled easel to senior Matt Addison Thursday, April 24 in front of the students and professors.
In September 2006, the student organization's adviser, Bob Setlock, was approached by Addison's physical therapist to build an easel that could overcome Addison's limitations of painting in a wheelchair.
"The easel is made with clamps to work with different size canvases," said ASME president, senior Asha Ananthu. "With a remote it moves vertically and horizontally so he can reach places better in his wheelchair."
According to Ananthu, the creation and completion of the easel is a milestone for the two-year-old organization. She said that ASME hopes to continue the tradition of community service in the future.
After Addison's therapist contacted ASME about the possibility of designing a remote-controlled easel and some members of the organization were able to see his work, junior, Eddie Rivera, vice president of ASME, said the group was inspired to help out their fellow student.
At the presentation, Addison saw the completed project for the first time.
"This has revolutionized my ability to do art," Addison said.
According to Ananthu, the project began with about 30 students in ASME working as a team to design and eventually create the easel.
According Rivera, the amount of students helping out along the way dwindled to about six after several roadblocks, including ASME members graduating and other design issues.
"We had a few obstacles going from the design standpoint into fabrication and had to make some modifications," Rivera said. "A lot of pieces didn't fit and had to be modified."
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Ananthu said ASME had to work around several vacations in the midst of working on the project.
"It was an ongoing project because when summer came no one worked on it and coming back to school we had to get back into the swing of things," Ananthu said.
According to Rivera, plans were made to get the easel done sooner. However, due to obstacles the perseverance and dedication of ASME members finally got it done.
"When the project started, I'm not sure if there was an estimated project completion," Rivera said. "But, after months of seeing the easel unfinished in the machine shop, it was my responsibility as vice president of the organization to get people together to honor our commitment to Matt."
Once Rivera took charge of the project, the team planned for the completion and presentation of the easel to Addison by spring break. However Rivera said several parts had to be remade and redesigned pushing the date back.
"This project put things in perspective," Ananthu said. "We have a lot of design projects and it's a major accomplishment to help other people out. It's a good indication we can have more projects like this in the future."
According to Rivera, ASME works on about seven to eight different projects at a time and is funded by Associated Student Government (ASG) and corporate sponsors.
Currently, the group is working with the Disability Accessibility Initiative group to come up with ways to increase accessibility on campus. The group's findings may be implemented by working with professional firms.
ASME also is creating a thermonuclear reactor in hopes of using the product to de-radiate the isotopes used in various cancer treatments.
"The thermonuclear reactor project was started because we wanted to do something that has never been done before at Miami," Rivera said. "While this idea has been researched by others, our project has a business initiative as well."
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