Tennessee Tech Engineering Students Answer The Call To Help A Middle School Drummer

Tennessee middle-schooler Aubrey Sauvie was born as a triple congential amputee - without limbs below both of her elbows and a foot missing toes - but it turns out that’s the least interesting thing about her. 

“It’s just one small part of me, it doesn’t make me, me,” Sauvie told WKRN. 

At 12, Sauvie has earned a black belt in tae kwon do, danced competitively and plays the snare drum in her middle school band.

Despite Sauvie’s proven success at nearly everything she does, playing the drums had presented some challenges for her because “the sticks would start slipping.” 

Her band director reached out to engineering students at Tennessee Tech. Their challenge was “to create a prosthetic arm that has an attachment for a drumstick, is comfortable, and durable.” The class’ entire process was documented online at the Technical Engineering for Kids webpage. 

Mechanical engineering student Zakary Henson said one of the first things the team did was to ask a lot of questions about Sauvie and what she needed. 

“So she plays the drums; does she also play the mallets? Does she play a xylophone? Something like that. So like is it going to have to have different handles? How is it going to be secured to the hand? All of these are questions we are thinking through,” Henson told WKRN.

Students then drew concept designs, took measurements and worked with the client (Sauvie) to decide on a design. 

Then it was trial and error and many iterations on a 3D printer. 

“It was just a bunch of prints over and over again. Just to see if we can do this and each print was like 24 hours long,” engineering student Branson Blaylock told WKRN.

A semester later, Sauvie’s prosthetics fit perfectly and they’re breathable and flexible. Most importantly, they allow Sauvie to make the sound she was searching for.  

Sauvie said she is grateful “they were so enthusiastic and determined to make it work.”

The engineering students are grateful too. 

“Ultimately I wanted to use my knowledge in mechanical engineering to help someone,” Henson said.  “To get to see it like actually fitting on her arm and everything, that was something that was so cool to see.”