Calera High School Students Will Deliver Utility Vehicles to Honduras

But it's not just the BUV that will change the lives of people in Honduras; the students have developed affordable artificial limbs for the disabled.

By Phillip Ohnemus
Students at Calera High School in Calera, Alabama, are combining math, science, and Spanish to help developing nations. And they’re doing that with a new vehicle called the BUV, the Basic Utility Vehicle, and it's made entirely by high school students. Brian Copes first envisioned the project six years ago while teaching 7th and 8th graders at Chelsea Middle School.

Copes says he challenges his students every day and so far those students have more than risen to the challenge. "The goal is to make an affordable vehicle, something that can be put together with simple hand tools something that will allow people to get their goods and services to and from the market place affordably."

The first two vehicles are being prepped for service, and are scheduled to be shipped to Honduras in April.

Junior Matthew Templin has been part of the team for the last three years. "Each vehicle could plow a field or act as an ambulance. Pretty much, they're designed to do multiple jobs."

Templin says he’s proud to be part of the project, "It's pretty exciting to know I was part of something that can actually help people in life." And the vehicles do much more than provide transportation and plow vehicles… They can be modified to drill wells providing fresh water to villages in third world nations.

But it's not just the BUV that will change the lives of people in Honduras; the students have developed affordable artificial limbs for the disabled. Senior Tyler Pearce has developed the second generation prosthetic leg after being part of the initial design team a year ago. Recently the first leg was fitted to an amputee in Haiti. "When I found out it was being used like a professional prosthetic leg, I was excited… I was like we actually built something that is being used besides the BUV's. It's going on to be much more than I ever thought it would actually be."

These new skills are putting the young men and women on track to successful careers.

Senior Meghan Ryan says she’s found a way to focus these lessons into what she hopes is a very successful career. "What I want to do after I graduate is study biomedical engineering at UAB and this would be a very good introduction to that for me."

Each of the students has spent about two hundred after school hours on these projects. They'll head to Honduras to help introduce the technology this summer. (12/19/11)

Note: This article was reprinted with permission of the author. It was originally published on the cbs42.com website.