A team of four mechanical engineering students has created a device to help a local woman with cerebral palsy get from point A to point B.

For their senior capstone project, the students have worked an average of 60 hours a week this semester to create a contraption that will carry Norman resident Linda Shannon from her shower to her toilet.

Over the past three years, the students have been working with Shannon, who has suffered from cerebral palsy for 49 years and only has movement in her right arm, said Kuang-Hua Chang, mechanical engineering professor and the group’s capstone adviser.

Past teams have worked to create a device that will carry her from her wheelchair to her bed and from the wheelchair to the toilet, Chang said.

The current team also has redesigned the old device that carried her to bed to make it more lightweight, said team member Mark Schoelen, mechanical engineering senior.

Shannon needs these devices now more than ever because the Oklahoma Department of Human Services has decreased how often aides come by to help her, said team leader Adam Herrington, mechanical engineering senior.

Chang said one weekend Shannon’s aide did not show up and she was forced to lie in bed completely immobile for the entire weekend.

“This lady couldn’t be sweeter,” Schoelen said. “She just really wants to be independent.”

The device is designed to pick Shannon up under her arms and legs and move her along a rail to the area she wants to go, Herrington said.

Three other electrical engineering students have volunteered to design an electrical control panel so Shannon can push a button for the location she wishes to go to, Herrington said.

It is important the device is lightweight and simple so Shannon can easily activate it.

The finished device will have six degrees of movement: up, down, left, right, forward and backward, allowing her to move around her bathroom, Herrington said.

The project is sponsored by Schlumberger Oilfield Services, an international supplier of petroleum technology. Schoelen said not many companies would be willing to sponsor something that doesn’t benefit them directly.

Herrington said he was attracted to the project because it gave him a chance to do something that would benefit someone in Norman.

“We wanted to do something that wasn’t a generic capstone, something we would have our hearts in,” he said.