Students used 3D technology to make devices for veterans

CLEVELAND » It was the simple things they missed.

Gardening. Turning the pages of a book. Using an electric razor.

Veterans, many of them requiring wheelchairs, told Cuyahoga Community College students about their longings as they all gathered not too long ago in a room at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center.

The Tri-C students were studying how to use 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, to make affordable, assistive devices that could help veterans and others reclaim some of the simple things in life.

Patient Richard Tuttle just wanted to garden again.

“Before my injury, I was quite the gardener,” he said. “I raised my own green beans — canned them. Raised tomatoes — canned them. Now, it is a different story from a year ago.”

It was then that Tuttle was paralyzed after falling 14-feet while deconstructing an old barn.

His story resonated with student Christopher Wiersma, who has had four back surgeries.

“When I began to get better, the first thing that I could really do was gardening,” he said. “It could have been just sitting in the dirt pulling weeds. Just doing it made me feel good. So, being able to give that to somebody else is important.”

A few days later, the students were back in class going over their notes and deciding what projects they would tackle.

Wiersma wanted Mr. Tuttle, as he called him, to till the soil again. He would design the Garden Buddy, a set of assistive tools.