{"297941":{"#nid":"297941","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Bobby Jones Classic for Chiari \u0026 Syringomyelia Foundation","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBiomedical Engineering\u0026nbsp;students on a mission to make golf more accessible for young players.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis year\u2019s Bobby Jones Classic tournament at East Lake Golf Club launches the beginning of a new partnership for the Georgia Institute of Technology, designed to increase accessibility to the sport for kings for a diverse, new, young crop of players, and it\u2019s largely thanks to the legacy of an Atlanta legend sometimes known as The Emperor Jones. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBefore he became roundly acclaimed as the greatest golfer of his generation, Robert Tyre Jones was a hell of an engineer, a graduate of Georgia Tech: Mechanical Engineering, Class of 1922. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe next year, he won the first of his record four U.S. Opens and, as almost everyone who has picked up a putter knows, Bobby Jones kept on playing championship golf like no one else has since, retiring as a competitor (a lifelong amateur) in 1930, after completing the only Grand Slam in the history of the sport, winning all four major championships in the same year. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat everyone may not know is, Jones, who died in 1971, was engaged in a painful battle with syringomyelia for much of his life. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cSyringomyelia is a tough word to say, and it\u2019s a tough condition to have as well, a fluid-filled cavity in the spinal cord that swells and presses against the spine itself,\u201d says Paul Farrell, chairman and founding member of the Board of Directors of the Chiari \u0026amp; Syringomyelia Foundation (CSF), who is battling the same affliction Jones had \u2013 well, the same two \u201cafflictions,\u201d if you count golf, as many duffers with a wry sense of humor typically do. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI have, unfortunately, lost the use of my legs 15 years ago, so I use a wheelchair,\u201d Farrell says. \u201cBut I was and I remain a very avid golfer.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis combination of circumstances makes the annual Bobby Jones Classic for CSF (May 18-19 at East Lake) a particularly profound event for Farrell, as it not only commemorates Jones the golfer, but is a major fundraiser for CSF, which exists to raise awareness and advance research of Chiari malformation (the most common cause of syringomyelia) and related disorders. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe Jones family has been very supportive of us, letting us use Bobby Jones\u2019 name and likeness to help us raise money for research,\u201d Farrell says. \u201cThey have really helped us get off to a fast start. We\u2019ve been an organization for about six years, and we\u2019re already funding research.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis year\u2019s tournament marks the beginning of a new phase in research, with Georgia Tech capstone students taking the lead role. CSF was to make it public during this tournament at East Lake \u2013 fittingly, Jones\u2019 home course, where the idea for the project came to Farrell and CSF Executive Director Dorothy Poppe. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELast year, as part of the opening ceremony for the PGA\u2019s TOUR Championship, the culminating event of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedEx Cup, two children from the vaunted First Tee program in the East Lake community, teed off to start the day. Farrell, who plays using a special golf cart designed for people with mobility challenges which has hand controls and a single swivel seat that can actually line a player up with his or her shot, was discussing the challenges of golf for disabled people with Poppe. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe were talking about my ability to play golf, then we were looking at these kids, and thought, it\u2019s terrific they\u2019ve got kids playing golf, but unfortunately, a child with physical limitations couldn\u2019t,\u201d Farrell says. \u201cThey\u2019ve got handicap accessible golf carts that are fantastic for an adult, but not for a child.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat\u2019s when Poppe started down the \u201cwhat if\u201d road, as in, \u201cwhat if we could come up with something for kids who deal with paralysis or limb loss or other mobility issues, some kind of vehicle that can help stand them up to swing a club. It could be a cart, or maybe something like a Segway \u2013 we don\u2019t know yet,\u201d Poppe adds. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThey don\u2019t know yet because Georgia Tech\u2019s capstone students haven\u2019t designed it yet. The impromptu brainstorming last year has become this year\u2019s undergraduate capstone project in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME). Poppe approached the BME folks, and James Rains is running giddily with the idea. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s a great idea, a real collaborative effort,\u201d says Rains, design instructor and director of the BME Capstone Design program. \u201cDorothy\u2019s idea was to partner with us, with golf cart companies, get the PGA [Professional Golf Association] involved.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEvery semester, capstone seniors apply what they\u2019ve learned to a real design problem. Since there isn\u2019t currently anything designed for children with disabilities to play golf, this qualifies, and Rains hopes to confront it with a versatile team. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe will actually want this to be a multidisciplinary team,\u201d he says. \u201cOriginally, they approached BME, but we want to pull in expertise from mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, industrial design, a diverse set of skills working in concert to solve this problem.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOr, it may be two teams working on different aspects of the problem, Rains adds. He won\u2019t know the makeup until the fall semester, when the next capstone class begins, and he can gauge student interest \u2013 he only wants students to work on projects they are passionate about. This isn\u2019t just for a grade. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cSome programs look at theoretical problems and aren\u2019t really interested in a real-world solution,\u201d Rains says. \u201cWe\u2019re interested in designing something tangible, and we don\u2019t know what that will be yet.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cRight now we\u2019re working with different companies, identifying partners willing to give us support and equipment \u2013 we don\u2019t want to start inventing golf carts from zero, in other words. That\u2019s another thing. Maybe this thing won\u2019t be a cart, per se. That\u2019s something the students have to figure out. So, we\u2019re not telling them to make a better golf cart. We\u2019re telling them to give access to people who don\u2019t have it.\u201d \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe CSF-sponsored team (or teams) will work fall semester with the goal of having a working prototype \u2013 proof of concept \u2013 before the annual Capstone Design Expo in December, when student teams from different disciplines pitch their stuff to a panel of judges, competing for cash prizes. And after that, who knows? Farrell, it turns out, is a patent attorney, so he\u2019s thinking long-term, and Poppe says her organization\u2019s interest extends well beyond December. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u2018\u2019This is a concept we are keeping close tabs on and with Georgia Tech\u2019s help we plan to see this through,\u201d Poppe says. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to think along a broad spectrum about accessibility, and the ability to play golf is one part of that. Imagine if we could design a way for children with disabilities to play golf? It could be a sport for them that lasts a lifetime.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Biomedical Engineering Capstone students on a mission to make golf more accessible for young players."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBiomedical Engineering\u0026nbsp;students on a mission to make golf more accessible for young players.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Biomedical Engineering Capstone students on a mission to make golf more accessible for young players."}],"uid":"27195","created_gmt":"2014-05-16 08:07:03","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:26","author":"Colly Mitchell","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-05-19T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-05-19T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"297981":{"id":"297981","type":"image","title":"James Rains - design instructor and director of the BME Capstone Design program","body":null,"created":"1449244530","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:55:30","changed":"1475894998","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:58","alt":"James Rains - design instructor and director of the BME Capstone Design program","file":{"fid":"199458","name":"rainsjamessrdesignproject.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rainsjamessrdesignproject_0.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rainsjamessrdesignproject_0.png","mime":"image\/png","size":498950,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/rainsjamessrdesignproject_0.png?itok=X1UKv2m7"}},"297991":{"id":"297991","type":"image","title":"Bobby Jones - One of the greatest golfers of his generation and a GT alum from the class of 1922 in Mechanical Engineering","body":null,"created":"1449244530","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:55:30","changed":"1475894998","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:58","alt":"Bobby Jones - One of the greatest golfers of his generation and a GT alum from the class of 1922 in Mechanical Engineering","file":{"fid":"199459","name":"bobby_jones_c1921.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bobby_jones_c1921_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/bobby_jones_c1921_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":517565,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/bobby_jones_c1921_0.jpg?itok=XJ98_Oyn"}}},"media_ids":["297981","297991"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.csfinfo.org\/","title":"Chiari \u0026 Syringomyelia Foundation"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.bobbyjonesclassic.com\/","title":"Bobby Jones Classic website"}],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"133","name":"Special Events and Guest Speakers"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute\u003Cbr \/\u003Efor Bioengineering \u0026amp; Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}