Students create robotic automatic opening locker for their disabled classmate Nick Torrance who has Muscular Dystrophy

Muscular dystrophy robbed Nick Torrance of his ability to walk, open his locker and do other everyday tasks many take for granted.

Starting this year, the Pinckney Community High School junior took a step toward being just like any other student.

He can open his own locker.

Two Pinckney seniors, Micah Stuhldreher and Wyatt Smrcka, used their robotics ingenuity and created an automatic locker opener.

Sitting in his wheelchair, Torrance slightly moves his hand over a sensor and his locker pops open. He moves his hand again, and the locker closes. Torrance, who is shy, said he likes the locker opener.

“The device is amazing,” Amy Uphouse said.

She’s an occupational therapist for the Livingston Educational Service Agency and helps Torrance become more independent.

“I think every high school student should be able to open their own locker,” Uphouse said.

Uphouse wants the device to be duplicated so it can help other disabled students in the district.

When she first thought about this idea, Uphouse figured there must be a device to do this, and she searched the Internet for one, but couldn’t find out.

She asked Pinckney Community High School robotics teacher Sean Hickman if he thought this could be a student project. “Absolutely,” was his response, and he knew exactly who should take it on; two students who took first place in the SkillsUSA national robotics competition in 2012 and are returning to the national competition this year.

“It’s good to see it works,” Stuhldreher said as Torrance tested the device.

Stuhldreher and Smrcka have been working on the device all year, improving it through trial and error.

“Just the fact that he can be able to do it on his own,” Smrcka said, makes him feel good.

The two students said they didn’t know much about the task at first. They said Hickman told them he had a “project” for them.

They were told to tear off a locker door and figure out a way to open and close it. They originally installed a relay inside the locker, but it took up too much space, so they switched to a computer.

They originally used a key fob to activate the robotic device, which opened the locker, but they said Torrance wasn’t strong enough to press the button. So they switched to a sensor.

The two students won a $1,500 minigrant from the Society of American Military Engineers so other devices can be made.

Both plan to pursue robotics as a career.

“I think it’s a great project,” said Jean Torrance, Nick’s mother.

She said being able to open his own locker gives her son a sense of independence, and she hopes it will allow him to be more social.

She said a student is assigned to help her son carry his books, jacket and put things in his locker. “It gives him something to do without asking for help,” she said.

The locker opener could prove helpful in another way for her 18-year-old son.

“He wants to talk to girls; he’s at that age,” she said.

Nick lives with his parents, Jean and Rob, their two dogs and two cats.

Hickman said the project turned out well, and it was a good exercise in design engineering iteration, meaning trying something repeatedly.

“Just because you get something built doesn’t mean it’s going to work the first time,” Hickman said.

Jim Darga, Pinckney Community High School principal, said this locker device is something “you can’t buy” but two high school students were able to design and build. What he really liked is the reason behind it.

“I think it’s fabulous students helping students,” he said.