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GLSC Seeks Applicants for Summer Mission Trip to Ecuador

Posted on January 30, 2025, by J Bradshaw.

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Cleveland Metropolitan School District students from the Great Lakes Science Center Robotics initiative and their adult mentors pose with two young patients during the 2024 humanitarian medical mission to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. – Image credit: Nicholas Fus.  

The Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) is now actively seeking student applicants to participate in a summer trip abroad.  Med Access International (formerly IMAHelps.org) has invited the Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) Robotics Initiative to participate in the 2025 Summer Humanitarian Medical Mission to Latacunga, Ecuador. The mission is scheduled for July 24th through August 3rd. GLSC is seeking up to six (6) students and four (4) adult chaperones to participate in this all-expenses-paid 10-day humanitarian medical mission.

Med Access International is a US-based, nonprofit volunteer organization that runs humanitarian medical missions to impoverished communities in the Caribbean and throughout Central and South America. For the past few years, the GLSC Robotics Initiative has partnered with Med Access International on the “Hands Across Borders” project, a student-led initiative started by the members of FIRSTâ Robotics Competition (FRC) Team #8222 but that now involves students from five of the Initiative’s six supported CMSD-based FRC teams.

“Through the Hands Across Border project, high school students in the GLSC Robotics Initiative have been designing and producing 3D-printed upper-limb prosthetic devices for children and adult amputees for nearly 3 years, delivering 40 prostheses to families in need…” says JonDarr Bradshaw, the Community Engagement Coordinator at GLSC and the Project Lead for the science center’s Robotics initiative.    

Bradshaw says the primary role of the students selected to participate in this medical mission will be to design, fabricate, assemble, and deliver custom-made, 3D-printed prosthetic hands and arms for 15-20 pre-selected child amputees. Participating students will also help to support the more than 80 doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals on the medical team by serving as translators, runners, and lab assistants where needed.  Additionally, the selected students will be tasked with meeting and helping to train local high school and college students to use locally sourced 3D printers to make upper-limb prosthetic devices. “That way,” says Bradshaw, “the work they’ve started will continue in the region long after they leave the country.”

High school students currently enrolled in the GLSC Robotics Initiative who are interested in participating in this humanitarian medical mission are encouraged to apply online at https://forms.gle/o9qXrcczuYpZspcB8.

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For additional information, students and parents can contact JonDarr Bradshaw at bradshawj@glsc.org

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​​A young girl learns to use her new 3D-printed device during the 2024 humanitarian medical mission to the Dominican Republic - Video Credit: Great Lakes Science Center