Submitted By: Contra Costa County ROP
John Swett High School ROP Instructor Tony Tammer and his CAD students manufactured and donated a prosthetic limb vise to Shriners Children’s Hospital, in Sacramento, in December. This very specialized vise allows their prosthetic technicians to shape and mold custom life-changing devices for growing children.
Mr. Tammer originally contacted Shriner’s prosthetics department to see if they needed any machine shop work done. The prosthetics technicians said they continually need items machined, especially because they treat children and some prosthetic devices are not available in children’s sizes. An agenda was laid out and it was agreed that, if the first items proved successful, this would be a long-term collaboration between John Swett’s ROP class and Shriner Hospital.
The technicians at Shriners Hospital were very pleased with the prototype and would like to expand its functionality to hold various sizes of round stock. Mr Tammer’s class is currently working on the second vise. The program will create several more of these to be utilized by all 14 Shriners Hospitals. The Shriners technicians were appreciative and amazed that this quality of work could be done at a high school.
Mr. Tammer has previous experience working with prototype products at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The vise they manufactured was a group effort by multiple students in the class machine shop. CAD involvement was crucial in documenting their efforts so that they will be able to build multiple units.