On July 24, six students from Great Lakes Science Center Robotics Initiative will embark on a 10-day humanitarian medical mission that will change their lives and the lives of young patients in Ecuador in need of prosthetic hands and arms. The trip will also be a chance to reconnect with one of the first patients that members of the robotics initiative was able to help in 2022.
 
Media is invited to meet the students and JonDarr Bradshaw, the Science Center’s community engagement coordinator and robotics team leader, at 10:30 a.m. Monday, July 21 during a send-off event at Great Lakes Science Center. The students will discuss their upcoming trip and their global community service project. The event will also showcase some of the custom-made prosthetics that they’ve built.
 
Now celebrating its fourth year of operation, Hands Across Boards is a student-led global community service project. The project was launched in 2022 by the members of four Cleveland-based, FIRST Robotics Competition teams. Participating students and mentors work closely with Med Access International, a US-based international volunteer organization that runs humanitarian medical missions to countries in the Caribbean and in Central and South America. Hands Across Borders is supported by Great Lakes Science Center and other sponsors, allowing the students to create low-cost prosthetics, provided to the patients without charge.
 
That first year, Cleveland students used a 3-D printer to create prosthetic devices that were delivered by Med Access International to children in Ecuador. One of the recipients was 12-year-old Samantha Alejandra Chiluisa Chango, who lost her left arm in a bus accident. While the students didn’t travel to Ecuador that first year to deliver the prosthetics, they were able to meet Samantha during a Zoom call and gain valuable feedback that was later used to improve the original design.
 
“When we gave her the arm, we told her that she was now part of our team,” Bradshaw said.
 
On this trip, Samantha will join the students at the hospital in Latacunga, Ecuador, when they arrive with 10, 3-D-printed upper-limb prosthetic devices as well as parts to assemble up to 15 additional prosthetic devices for walk-in patients. The Ecuadorian teenager, who wants to become a doctor, will help the team with this year’s patients.  
 
Since that first set of prosthetics sent to Ecuador in 2022, students from the Science Center’s Robotics Initiative teams who work on the community service project have traveled to Ecuador in 2023 and the Dominican Republic in 2024 to deliver prosthetics and meet with patients. Each trip is a learning experience, giving the students the opportunity to improve on the process each year and find ways to overcome unexpected obstacles.
 
While the newly created prosthetics are a visible sign of the lives that the Hands Across Borders project has changed since the service project started in 2022, it has a profound impact on the students making and delivering the prosthetics as well.
 
“They’ve become problem solvers, finding solutions for the challenges they encounter when they deliver the prosthetics” Bradshaw said, “and role models for their peers at home.”
 
Because of the work of the students, and the support of the mentors and sponsors at Great Lakes Science Center, Med Access was able to expand its capabilities while providing the students with real-world STEM experience and an outlet for their burgeoning leadership skills and humanitarian interests.
 
Where:           
Great Lakes Science Center
601 Erieside Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44114
216.694.2000
GreatScience.com
 
About Great Lakes Science Center
Great Lakes Science Center is one of the top 10 museums in the nation as celebrated by the 2025 USA Today 10 Best Readers’ Choice travel award for Best Science Museum. The Science Center hosted Total Eclipse Fest in 2024, one of the largest free eclipse events in the country and is home to the NASA Glenn Visitor Center. The Science Center makes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) come alive for more than 300,000 visitors a year through hundreds of hands-on exhibits, temporary exhibitions, the Cleveland Clinic DOME Theater, historic Steamship William G. Mather, daily science demonstrations, seasonal camps and more. The Science Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit institution, earned a 2023 Platinum Seal of Transparency from Candid, a leading provider of insight and data about the non-profit world. The Science Center is supported in part by the residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. Visit GreatScience.com for more information.
 
About Med Access International
Med Access International is a 25-year-old nonprofit that organizes medical humanitarian missions across Central and South America and the Caribbean. Established in Rancho Mirage, California, as International Medical Alliance in 2000, which became IMAHelps the organization changed its name to Med Access International in early 2025 to reflect its mission to provide access to medical, dental, surgical, and prosthetic care to impoverished people of all ages throughout the Western Hemisphere. For more information, visit the Med Access International website.  

About the Great Lakes Science Center Robotics Initiative
The Great Lakes Science Center Robotics Initiative is a joint venture between Great Lakes Science Center and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD). The initiative was established to increase the participation of Cleveland’s historically underserved and underrepresented youth in the field of robotics. For more information, visit GreatScience.com/roboticsinitiative