Disabled students on the team

[StevenB]

I worked for four years with a student who had muscular dystrophy and was in a wheelchair. He was the software guy, but he was also the electrical team, and sometimes the CAD team. Maybe the pneumatics team as well.

Basically we would sit together, both of our minds working together, and my fingers doing the typing. If I wasn't there, or was busy with others, he'd be coaching others on how to wire up the robot, or gently berating them for putting the drivebase together wrong. And in 2008 (Overdrive), since the ROBOCOACH position didn't require any physical capacity, he was with us on the drive team.

I don't know that we made significant changes to the team structure or the way we did things to accommodate Kaleb. It happened naturally, because he was on the team from its rookie year, and his father was heavily involved as a mentor.