Teen inventors use grant to give disabled classmates a voice

NORFOLK

Kent Collins teaches computer systems classes and coaches the robotics team at Norview High School.

Down the hall, Dorothy Elkins teaches students with multiple disabilities. Most have cerebral palsy and struggle to communicate.

When Collins received an $8,000 grant to work with his students on an invention, he thought immediately of his colleague.

"He came to me one day and said, 'Is there anything special we can do for your students?' " Elkins said.

The result is the "Conversation Starter," a device that Collins' students hope will help those with cerebral palsy communicate better. They will present their work this week during an invention festival at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Norview was one of 16 high schools in the country to receive a grant from the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams program, which promotes young inventors. At the festival, the Norview students will meet inventors and scientists, participate in an engineering design challenge and learn how to commercialize the device.

To research their invention, Collins' team of teens visited with Elkins' class and traveled to St. Mary's Home for Disabled Children.

They learned that communications devices cost between $2,000 and $10,000 and that some require six hours of charging for eight hours of use. People with limited movement were unable to handle most models.

"I was just speechless," Shanice Barrett, 16, said. "Something has to be done about how it's so expensive, and it's not really effective."

The students also met with Robert Gould, one of Elkins' former students.

Gould, who uses a wheelchair, speaks through a computer. He wears a headband equipped with a pointer to choose letters on a screen. When he's finished, a voice says the words that he spelled out.

The day he visited Collins' students, his father had to restart the machine with a bent paper clip three times.

"You can see how painstakingly slow it is," Elkins said. "And you also have to know how to spell."

Working on Wednesday afternoons and some weekends, the students designed, built and programmed their instrument.

As a person presses down on a single button, the computer scrolls through a list of letters or words. To select a letter, word or phrase, the person lets up pressure on the button. The device also remembers frequently used phrases.

The students estimate the cost of the "Conversation Starter" at about $800. That makes them proud.

"It makes you feel better in life," Cedric Maxwell, 16, said, "because you actually helped people that needed help, that other people can't help."

The invention also has potential, they believe. With a little more work, the sentences won't disappear after the computer speaks, and the invention might be usable on cell phones.

Asked what he thought about the project, Gould carefully used the pointer on his headband to spell one word: "Good."

Amy Jeter, (757) 446-2730, amy.jeter@pilotonline.com