It was a big day for Dee Faught when a team of Rice University students gave him a helping hand. In fact, they gave him a whole arm.
The bioengineering students who won last April's George R. Brown School of Engineering Design Showcase and Competition for their R-ARM, a robotic device for Faught that fits his motorized chair, had the eager team try a nearly finished version Sept. 20 at Shriner's Hospital for Children in Houston.
The arm will allow Faught, who lives with osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic condition that makes his bones especially brittle, to perform tasks most people take for granted.