One out of every 1,000 children born in the world has a congenital defect known as clubfoot that causes their feet to turn inward. The relatively common disability is easy to treat without surgery, but fixing it can cost $300-$700 and requires children to wear a cumbersome orthopedic brace. Luckily, as Wired reports, Stanford students Jeff Yang and Ian Connolly have teamed up with the non-profit miraclefeet to develop a toy-like brace that only costs $20. “We wanted to develop something highly functional, elegant, but using same visual language as a child’s toy,” Connolly told Wired. As you can see in the video above, kids can happily teeter on the light plastic rod without any assistance. That’s a welcome alternative to clunky and expensive metal braces. The Stanford pair hope to get their invention into production soon.
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Tag: Children
Beautiful Anti-Bullying Song, Written by a Student, Is Taking Over East Brunswick
Kathleen Lonski thought that her school’s anti-bullying campaign left out a big piece of the picture. Though the school was trying to stop bullying, she didn’t see any support for victims of bullying. Though she hadn’t directly experienced bullying herself, she saw a need for advice and empathy for her classmates. With her insightful look at the problem, her creative approach to a solution was fitting. She picked up her guitar, applied lessons from her after-school music composition club, and wrote a song. With “Don’t Let Them In,” she has rallied the school district and the whole community. Almost every school in her East Brunswick school district has played the song, and she performed the song at the East Brunswick Performing Arts Center to a standing ovation. Building on the success, she’s recording a demo album, hoping her message will continue to spread in support of victims of bullying.