The Flying Monkeys, a preteen Girl Scouts robotics team in Iowa, created an award-winning device that allowed a Georgia toddler to write for the first time.
Three-year-old Danielle was born without fingers on her right hand. The Flying Monkeys, winners of the X Prize Global Innovation Award at the middle-school robotics competition FIRST Lego League, engineered a prosthetic tool called BOB-1 that allowed the young girl to hold a pencil and draw.
One of the Flying Monkeys members' own limb deficiency inspired the team's work.
The Girl Scouts visited an occupational therapist and a prosthetics manufacturer to assess the current gaps in the field. Most prosthetics are expensive and bulky; the young girls wanted to create something simple and practical.
The BOB-1 consists of an arm-attaching plastic platform with a perpendicular piece that can grip a writing utensil. The working prototype is being improved with the help of Danielle's parents, who also adopted a 5-year-old boy with a limb difference.
The device won them $20,000 toward its patenting. A patent is currently pending from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The Flying Monkeys beat 179 international submissions to win.
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