Desert View High School students have been taking on a major project.
Everything started with the Harbor Freight Tools for School,” Cesar Gutierrez, Precision Manufacturing Teacher.
Gutierrez attended a Harbor Freight conference in Colorado where he found out his school could build prosthetics for third-world countries.
No questions asked… Gutierrez got the principal on his phone and they hit the ground running.
We have a total of nine students that are actually helping us out with the leg right now,” Gutierrez said.
Desert view is only in charge of one part of the leg, the ankle and knee portion.
Theres actually one more piece that attaches this connects to that will wrap around the persons leg,” Santion Rodriquez, Desert View Senior said.
Other high schools around the country work on the other parts and then its all pieced together. And a lot of work goes into building these prosthetic legs.
We want to keep it simple in order for us to produce it,” Lucy Pacheco, Desert View Senior said. “Especially since we are going to these third world countries that dont really have a lot of resources it’s important to keep it simple so that way, youre able to produce as many as you can in the most efficient way.”
The program had planned to go to Guatemala this past week to bring 50 prosthetic legs for amputees.
This is like community service at its grandest age,” Gutierrez said. “Youre not just helping your community, now youre helping parts of the world and youre helping people walk.”
Unfortunately, due to political protests in Guatemala, the trip had to be canceled.
But they still plan to go in the future and the students cant wait.
Weve seen like all the parts we make and how those can help the shop, but I want to see how we are going to help other people,” Rodriquez said.
The trip to Guatemala will hopefully be rescheduled as soon as possible where they will be able to successfully bring the prosthetic legs.