When Ben Dieter was approached by a teacher from Brownsboro ISD about finding a student to help build a device, he knew exactly who he could count on.
“He’s very good at 3D modeling, which is exactly what this project was,” said Dieter, the engineering and architecture teacher at Chapel Hill High School. “So, when my boss asked me to find a person, I picked him right away.”
The student he picked was Dylan Scott, a junior at Chapel Hill High School. The project: building a device to assist a visually impaired student in using his tablet.
“It’s a tablet divider,” said Scott. “It helps him with what he’s aiming for on his iPad, to touch it.”
The divider took Scott only two weeks to build.
“He worked hard on it and came up with exactly what they wanted,” said Dieter. “You know, kids can get distracted, but he did this within a two-week period, which is amazing. To go from creating a prototype to the final product in two weeks, in engineering, that doesn’t happen.”
Dieter said he monitored Scott throughout the process to make sure he was measuring correctly, but said Scott did most of the work by himself.
“I know he can trust me,” said Scott. “And if I’m able to help again, I will.”
Scott said he doesn’t know if he’ll get to meet the student who will use the device but if he does, he knows what he’d like to say.
“I’d like to get to know him,” said Scott. “I’d like to thank him for letting me do this and giving me a chance to do it.”
Dieter said being asked by the other professor was a testament to the students he’s able to teach.
“It means a lot about the quality of students I get to teach and the quality of students that are here,” said Dieter. “The fact is, he was excited to get to do something real world and not just a school project. It was something he knew was going to affect someone’s life in a good way.”
