Henley High School engineering students designed and built a custom ride-on car for a 4-year-old child during a class project tied to a national mobility initiative.
The project is part of the Go Baby Go, a program that modifies battery powered cars for children with limited mobility. Students customized a bright red car for Paxton, a 4-year-old from the Eugene area who loves dinosaurs.
Kristi Lebkowsky, Henley's engineering teacher and project adviser, introduced the program after learning about it at a conference last year.
“Mobility is directly tied to social development in children,” Lebkowsky said. “When kids can’t move freely, it limits their ability to play, engage, and grow socially.”
Students began with a base car kit and designed modifications to meet Paxton’s needs, including head and neck supports, a push-button toggle control and an adjustable harness system.
Student engineers and team design
Two seniors, Joshua Weaver and Anthony Flores, led the first phase. They developed a custom head support system and personalized the car with Paxton’s name and dinosaur decals.
“We took the skills we learned in class and applied them,” Flores said in a press release. “We know he likes dinosaurs, so we made the car just for him.”
After graduating, Weaver and Flores handed the project off to a second team: Layne Worrell, Theron Tyler, Aliea Bresch, Ethan Bissell and Alex Smith.
During Paxton’s first fitting, students realized they needed to adjust the design. The second team redesigned the headrest for greater adjustability, improved the harness to allow for growth and used 3D printing to create custom parts. They also added armrests and a sensor-controlled toggle system.
Paxton received the car in July and loved it.
“We wanted to make it as perfect as we could for him," Worrell said.
Lebkowsky said the project gave students hands-on experience similar to professional engineering work.
"Just like in industry, teams shift, designs evolve, and solutions are built collaboratively," she said.
Lebkowsky plans to make Go Baby Go part of the curriculum and hopes to establish a local chapter of Go Baby Go in southern Oregon.
“This is a way to give back to our community and serve children in Klamath County,” she said. “With these cars, kids like Paxton aren’t just moving, they’re playing and being included.”
Guests
- Kristi Lebkowsky, Henley High School Engineering and Robotics instructor at Henley High School
- Layne Worrell, senior at Henley High
