RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Inventors of all ages showed off their designs for VA Hospital’s Innovation Creation Make-A-Thon on Thursday with each design meant to make life just a little bit easier for our disabled veterans.
Becky Button and her brother John say their invention was inspired by a wartime vet left taking dozens of pills.
“She was on like 30 medications at one time and she had to take these medicines like eight times a day, daily, which was quite a bit of a hassle to keep up with,” she said.
Their design is a pill and insulin module, complete with an alert system for medication times.
Eric Young is a Marine who lost his arm. He shares what he hopes this program will mean for him in the future saying,”I am going to ride my harley some day soon, through this opening in Colorado, someday soon… someday real soon, thanks to the thing that’s going on in that room right there.”
The event also gave a nod to girl power. “The Girls’ Lounge” teamed up with women who work in STEM (science technology engineering and math) and Prosthetic Ink, beautifying prosthetic limbs.
During the event, they did a live fitting on a female veteran.
Heather Irvine is the Marketing and Creative Director for The Girls’ Lounge and says “she {the female veteran} is just overwhelmed. I mean she just feels like a brand new woman, because she’s got options now. It’s not just this big clunky, you know, factory made piece that she’s got. She feels beautiful.”
For the veterans, the effort shown today was touching to say the least.
“For me, I don’t think that there’s a better thank you you could give me,” said Young.
The designs went before a judging panel, and the winning team received an award of $20,000.
Each of the designs will be in the NIH 3D systems catalogue, making them available for anyone to use.
