By Danielle Smith

Leader Staff Writer

Gavin Lawrey can be seen rolling through the hallways of Oxford Middle School in his upgraded set of wheels, thanks to the Oxford Robotics team.

Gavin was diagnosed with Mitochondrial Disease, an incurable, progressive, genetic disorder when he was 4 ½-years-old. According to the Cleveland Clinic, Mitochondrial Disease occurs when mitochondria, the “energy factory” of the body, fails to produce enough energy for the body to function correctly. When this happens, cells become damaged and die as the amount of energy they produce decreases. In Gavin’s case, major organs have been affected by the disease, making every-day tasks more difficult and draining for Gavin to accomplish. One of those tasks is walking.

While Gavin can walk short distances with assistance, it takes up a lot of valuable energy that his body could use elsewhere, which lead to the use of a chair referred to as his “chill-out chair,” a green, solid chair made out of memory foam with a wood plate at the bottom with caster wheels attached.

The chill-out chair is something Gavin has used since the first grade and served as his desk and main source of transportation last year while attending Oxford Elementary School. However, the chair was not motorized and required manual force to get Gavin to different areas of the building.

With middle school around the corner, Gavin was going to be faced with a new challenge: a bigger, more populated school with numerous class changes and ramps; meaning that the chillout chair was about to become a lot more difficult to maneuver.

“(Gavin’s) Beaumont hospice doctors had promised him that this year he would get a motorized bike because they make special bikes for kids with special needs,” said Shannon Sutton, Oxford Robotics K-8 treasurer and Wildbots coach.

“He was so looking forward to being able to be an independent kid. At the very last minute, the day before he was supposed to get his bike, it fell through. Gavin was crushed and Brandi (Gavin’s mom) was crushed.”

While on Facebook one day, Sutton came across a post by Brandi, sharing an article about a robotics team from a different state that developed a bike for a special needs individual in their community.

Sutton immediately reached out to Brandi and said, “Let’s see if the robotics kids can do something to help you and Gavin.”

Sutton then reached out to the various people in charge of Oxford Robotics and everyone thought helping Gavin would be a great idea.

“We’re always looking for outreach projects and this (seemed) like something great for us to do,” she said.

Once everyone was on board, the team started brainstorming.

“Gavin was starting to grow out of his chill-out chair,” Brandi said in a text message to this reporter.

“It was on wheels that were no longer working out. Gavin’s legs had gotten longer and his feet would now drag. Gavin has neuropathy, so this was often pretty painful.

A few teachers and I were discussing how the robotics team could maybe change out the wheels for us.”

A few members of the robotics team went over to Gavin’s house to look at the chair so they could “start to get some dimensions and some feel for what (they were) dealing with.”

“(Gavin) has muscle atrophy and neuropathy, so with those two…he is in a lot of pain a lot of time,” Sutton said. “He needs a

chair that is very comfortable to sit in, so having this solid memory foam chair is the most comfortable thing for him to be in, and a regular motorized chair isn’t comfortable, no matter how much padding you put in it…so it needed to be this green chill-out chair.”

“We had a lot of communication. We first went over his needs and then (the robotics team) worked endlessly to create a plan (and) find a solution to meet his needs,” Brandi said. “As they brainstormed and started working, they came up with ideas that could make (Gavin) more comfortable and the chair as practical as possible for him.”

The robotics team got to work and spent their summer upgrading the chill-out chair.

“One of the main reasons we wanted this to be a multi-level program is we (wanted) to get the elementary kids exposed to what the middle school kids (were) doing so they’ll continue their interest in robotics. (Then) get the middle school kids working with the high school kids, so when they go to make that leap, they already know some people and they already feel comfortable…so we thought that this was a great thing that everybody could rally around,” Sutton said.

The first part of the project was to get a motorized base to attach to the chill-out chair. Sutton had a coworker that knew someone that repaired medical equipment, so the robotics team received a motorized base, free of charge.

When asked if he had any special requests for the chair, Gavin said, “My chair was already green, which is my favorite color. They asked me if I had any other favorite colors and I said blue. They spray painted the base metallic blue and I thought that was pretty cool.”

The high school team was in charge of figuring out how to mount the chair to the base of the motorized scooter, while the middle school team took on the task of building a mock-up chair, that way designs could be tested without destroying Gavin’s current chair. The elementary team came up with the idea of building four ottomans to be placed in each of Gavin’s classrooms.

“When Gavin is in class, he can’t have his legs hang straight down because of circulation…so he had an ottoman that used to attach to his chill-out chair, but as we raised the height of his chill-out chair to be on top of the motorized base, his ottoman was too short to have a proper angle for his legs,” Sutton said.

Gavin Sutton, a fifth-grader at OES contributed to the project by attaching the legs to the ottomans and putting waterproofing on the fabric to prevent damage from spilled liquids or damp feet. He said it was “pretty fun” to help with the project.

Now, each ottoman could be stored in their respective classrooms without having to be attached to the chill-out chair, reducing the amount of space needed to maneuver the chair.

Jason Grabowski, a senior at Oxford High School took on the task of designing the lapdesk and some of the manufacturing for it. “We tried to accommodate as much as possible for (Gavin) because he has a bunch of different equipment that he had to have, so (the family) really liked that it could all be kept on the chair,” Grabowski said.

“I helped in the beginning to get the base ready and try to problem solve some of the wiring issues,” said Wyatt Ashley, a freshman at OHS. “I thought it was important (to get involved)…it’s got to be a challenge to have all of the disabilities he has, and to have some sort of independence in middle school I think would be important to me, so I thought I should help.”

By the end of the summer, Gavin’s chill-out chair had a complete makeover. Aside from it being motorized with the capability of being operated by the movement of his arm as opposed to a joystick, the chair now had an attached lapdesk, an umbrella that could be easily attached if Gavin wanted to go outside or be protected from the rain, room for an oxygen tank and a dog bed for Hershey, Gavin’s service dog that sits on top of his chair.

When asked how Hershey likes the improvements, Gavin said, with a laugh, “(Hershey) likes anything he can sleep on.”

“We took him for a ‘fitting’ before (the chair) was complete so Gavin could sit in it and make sure it was comfortable,” Brandi said. “They have even taken the time to make adjustments to it throughout the school year to make it even more practical for him and as easy as possible to maneuver!”

This past Saturday, members of Oxford Robotics gathered at OMS to celebrate what they had accomplished for their fellow Wildcat. While Gavin and his family were not able to attend the celebration, they were grateful to all involved.

“The chair has not only made it possible for Gavin to comfortably maneuver around school, it gives him independence! He hasn’t had this type of independence in school in years,” Brandi said. “He is in control of where he is going and doesn’t have to rely on an adult to push him. This gives him so much pride, confidence and a sense of independence. I can’t think of a better way for him to start middle school…they blessed us in a way we never expected or could have imagined.”

With this new independence, Gavin has enjoyed middle school when he is feeling well enough to go.

“I really like when I get to invite my friends to have lunch with me and they bring a friend for me to meet. I like making new friends, it’s nice,” Gavin said.