Stella, a service dog that spends her time at Torrington Middle School, was born without a paw.
A Torrington school’s service dog with a missing paw may soon be running a little bit faster.
Stella is a little dog who spends her time among the students at Torrington Middle School. You may not notice at first glance, but because of a birth defect, she’s spent her entire life missing a paw. Now the kids are working to change that.
“I was like ‘there's a dog missing a foot? Can I do something?’" said eighth grader Lyahnize Rojas
Working together, the students are using technology to make a prosthetic paw for Stella.
“At first I was just going to raise money to buy the prosthetic, but then I thought of the 3D printer and I was like what if we could just make the foot?” Rojas explained.
That technology includes a 3D printer, along with all the other aspects of the STEM fields these kids are learning. They are also raising money to pay for the device, which is their own design, and similar to something you may see on an Olympic athlete.
“This is the actual hook and it’s going to be able to flex when the dog walks,” said seventh-grader Trevor Llewellyn.
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The adults are also excited about Stella’s prosthetic, watching these children do good while opening their minds to new options beyond the classroom.
“I think working with the 3D printer in middle school and having the opportunity to be exposed to this at such a young age, you really never know how you're going to impact a child's learning,” said Principal Bryan Olkowski.
“I'm as excited as they are to see what they're doing. They're just running with it and she's going to be running with it pretty soon,” added Teresa Sullivan, executive director for the Connecticut Academy for the Arts.
The students have already produced several models of what Stella’s prosthetic might look like, and they’re hoping to have a working model by the month’s end.
“I thought it would be cool to just have her walk around like a real dog,” Rojas said.
