Girl Scouts and SWE build canine wheelchairs

Wheelchairs for dogs?  People aren't the only ones who need a little  help getting around.

Girl Scouts learned that engineers can solve all kinds of problems  when 14 University of Louisville students in the Society of Women  Engineers (SWE) visited the Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana office Saturday morning  to work with them on assembling wheelchairs for dogs that have limited   mobility because of injury or illness.  And they'll see a dog or two  benefiting from using the devices.

After learning about engineering's many career options and  brainstorm about designing the wheelchair, more than a dozen Girl  Scouts put together a canine wheelchair out of plastic piping,  dowel rods, bolts and wheels. Dimensions are approximately 18 inches  wide, 30 inches long and 24 inches high.

UofL engineering professors Gina Bertocci and Karen Frost, who direct  a dog wheelchair project through a Canine Rehabilitation and  Biomechanics Laboratory, were on hand to advise and show how the  wheelchairs work. Their goal has been to design and develop a low- cost, adjustable wheelchair to fit a dog's size and improve its  overall health and quality of life – and to make the design available  to all who need it.

SWE donated the wheelchair from Saturday's session to a rescue dog.

ExxonMobil provided a grant for the event to teach girls about  engineering.

The following link is a story provided by Fox41.com and contains a video:
http://www.fox41.com/Global/story.asp?S=13376338