Tabetha Noel-Ratcliff was born with a condition called symbrachydactyly, which leads to limb anomalies. For this 15-year-old, it meant having one underdeveloped hand.

While the teen’s right arm and hand are fully functional, the fingers on her left hand are underdeveloped.

Nevertheless, she is able to play an instrument – the French horn – in the school’s band.

“I just wanted to be in band,” Noel-Ratcliff told WFAA News. “Didn’t want to do choir. Didn’t want to do any of the other stuff. I wanted to do band.”

But as a freshman at Northwest High School, she also had her sights set on joining the school’s marching band in addition to the concert band. That was a little trickier.

Most French horn players switch to the mellophone for marching band – they’re basically the same instrument, but just used for different purposes. The mellophone looks more like a trumpet.

And for Noel-Ratcliff, it turned out to be harder to hold, especially as she was trying to march.

“It’s a little more bumps, up and down,” she said. “Makes it harder to play, and also it’s just harder to balance.”

Luckily, the band director at Northwest High School had her back and reached out to another teacher for help.

The school has a strong STEM program and its robotics teacher was quick to volunteer a student to take on the task of designing a tool for the freshman to use so she could play in the marching band.

That student was 16-year-old Clark Strong. And while Noel-Radcliff is a STEM student as well, it turns out that the two had never met up to that point.

Strong was happy to take on the challenge for his fellow student and set about designing a prosthetic for her left hand to help her balance her instrument while she marched.

“It was an exciting challenge, and I was ready to get into it,” he said.

Strong is into 3-D printing. So into it that he has his own 3-D printer at home. Volunteering his time, energy, and materials, he created and printed the device.

“I did it on my own time in between homework and studying,” Strong said.

At the beginning of the school year, Strong delivered the prosthetic to Noel-Radcliff – and it’s been…instrumental in helping her reach her goal.

As you might expect, the young woman is grateful to her schoolmate for taking on the task:

“If there weren’t people that did stuff out of the kindness of their heart, I wouldn’t have a prosthetic. I wouldn’t be doing as good in band,” she said.

Strong felt just as good about the endeavor.

“To know that you’re able to help someone, it’s very rewarding. And then to see that what you did, and how it’s able to help them actually in the field, it’s the greatest feeling.”

It sounds like this is one school STEM program that has successfully integrated service into its mission.

Be sure to scroll down to see an interview with both students as well as the custom-designed prosthetic at work.

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Source: WFAA News