{"id":42903,"date":"2026-04-30T09:17:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T13:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/?p=42903"},"modified":"2026-04-30T09:20:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T13:20:35","slug":"from-jar-openers-to-key-grippers-devices-designed-by-uf-students-help-people-with-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/bme\/from-jar-openers-to-key-grippers-devices-designed-by-uf-students-help-people-with-disabilities\/","title":{"rendered":"From jar openers to key grippers, devices designed by UF students help people with disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>UF students are collaborating to create custom 3D-printed assistive devices for the community.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The project pairs occupational therapy students with engineering teams to develop low-cost solutions for daily challenges like opening jars or stabilizing items on wheelchairs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Participants receive personalized tools designed to address specific needs that are often overlooked by large-scale manufacturers of medical equipment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>While access has improved for people with disabilities, small inconveniences still exist everywhere. To solve that \u2014 piece by piece \u2014 students from the University of Florida&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/phhp.ufl.edu\/\">College of Public Health and Health Professions<\/a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/\">Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering<\/a>&nbsp;are helping design 3D-printed assistive devices for locals with unique needs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The devices community members asked for are simple \u2014 a specialized jar opener, a key gripper, an adjustable iPad stand and a phone stabilizer \u2014 items that are hard to find because they aren\u2019t manufactured on a large scale like wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/phhp.ufl.edu\/2026\/04\/16\/from-jar-openers-to-key-grippers-devices-designed-by-uf-students-help-people-with-disabilities\/\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/phhp.ufl.edu\/2026\/04\/16\/from-jar-openers-to-key-grippers-devices-designed-by-uf-students-help-people-with-disabilities\/\">Read full story on UF Health.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While access has improved for people with disabilities, small inconveniences still exist everywhere. To solve that \u2014 piece by piece \u2014 students from the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions and the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering are helping design 3D-printed assistive devices for locals with unique needs.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2592,"featured_media":42905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-templates\/single-sidebar-none.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"off","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[53,57,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bme","category-stories","category-student-spotlight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2592"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42903"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42909,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42903\/revisions\/42909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}