My first time visit to the DRES was really awesome. I have heard a lot about this place thanks to Professor Dr. McDonagh inviting coach Adams to our class. And I was always very excited to visit this place since then. When I first entered the gym, the first thing I’ve realized is that there were no mirrors. For me, when I worked out during my army years, I loved to workout in front of a large mirror. This way, I can look at my body position and fix it if I am in a bad position. But other than that, the training room was really clean and didn’t smell like sweat at all! My favorite had to be the Paralympic wheelchairs hanging on the ceiling, making me feel like I’m part of the history.
I loved how all the mentors had their own stories and they were very supportive when we had questions. Also, I loved how each one of them sparked us with some questions. Such as Ryan telling us to look into the opportunities in “snow tires” and “ski tires”. Ariel gave some statistic of how 65 million people do not have any access to wheel chairs, so we have an opportunity in where we can create a wheel chair out of 3d printers.
For me, I am most interested in mentor Jenna and her prosthetic leg. She is a senior majoring in Kinesiology and is a RA. As the weather gets cold and the roads get icy, she told us the ice makes it difficult for her to get her from one to the next. And when she falls the ground, she tells us how careful she is when she falls down to the ground. Because, her prosthetic legs are very expensive (about 100,000 dollars), she needs to be careful not to fall on the knee part of the leg. Then she showed us how she has already scratched it. (even though it was made out of titanium) Also, since her prosthetic leg isn’t water proof (water proof ones costs 1/4 million dollars) she has to always rinse her leg after going outside in the winter. So, I feel this is the opportunity our team is going to tackle for the next few weeks.
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