Basketball shooter will help students with limitations be active in physical education classes

A push-button shooting device developed by Nebraska Engineering students will help students with physical limitations shoot a basketball in a school's physical education classes.

This project focuses on assisting students, ages 5-21, at JP Lord School, an Omaha Public Schools facility that serves young students with multiple disabilities. Many of these students have very limited mobility, preventing them from physically handling and shooting basketballs without an assistant’s help. In some cases, students are only capable of pushing a ball from their lap or pressing a button.

Because interaction with the surrounding environment is a key factor in learning and development for young students, these limitations can prevent students from understanding how the world around them works.

The team of Matt McManigal, Meghan Biegert, Ryan Stutzman and Tyrell Williams, in their senior design capstone course, created a standalone basketball launcher capable of shooting a small basketball into a hoop with the simple touch of a button.