Desert View High School students in the precision manufacturing program are headed to Chicago this month to showcase a student-designed prosthetic leg that are made affordable for people thousands of miles away.
The students will present a below-the-knee prosthetic they designed for amputees in Peru at the International Manufacturing Technology Show at McCormick Place.
A sample of the prosthetic leg, Nov. 9, 2023, the precision manufacturing class Desert View High School made, nearly all in house.
“The impact this has on the kids is enormous,” program instructor Cesar Gutierrez said. “They actually put one and one together on what an actual engineer can do to change somebody’s life.”
The Desert View precision manufacturing program operates like an actual contract machining shop, Gutierrez said, with state-of-the-art equipment including three-, four- and five-axis machines.
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Outside of building prosthetic legs, the program has also worked on exercise machines, golf clubs and a lithium battery case.
The students will present their current model at the conference, which costs roughly $750, Gutierrez said. Over the next year, his students will work with cheaper materials to craft a more affordable model — about $150.
“These kids really put a lot of time into this, so like I'm the teacher, but I actually became the student on this prosthetic leg,” he said. “Like they were actually teaching me about new filaments, new plastics that can get 3D printed that are actually safe on the skin, and that are medical grade … it was empowering and also very exciting to have students get that excited over helping somebody else.”
