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Old Dominion tech students create holiday STEM toys for pediatric patients

Posted at 4:14 PM, Nov 30, 2018
and last updated 2018-11-30 16:26:15-05

(ODU)

NORFOLK, Va. – Using their classroom experience, industrial technology students at Old Dominion University will make sick children’s holiday seasons a little brighter.

For the third year in a row, students in the Darden College of Education and Professional Studies will assemble and package 60 toys – researched, designed and fabricated in the classroom – to donate to the Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorder Center at the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters.

The school is expanding the program this year to donate 60 more toys to the Henrico Health Department Refugee Clinic in Richmond. According to a release by the City of Norfolk, on a given day, more than 200 children receive treatment there.

Related: Norfolk Admirals holiday shop for local foster children

The “MerMADE STEM TOYS4KIDS” project has students create puzzles based on age group. The youngest patients will receive colorful puzzles, the middle age group will receive three-dimensional puzzles and the oldest patients will receive logic puzzles.

To date, more than 300 toys have been fabricated and distributed to children throughout Hampton Roads via CHKD.

ODU will be assembling the toys at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, December 5 in the Maker’s Space at Slover Library. The toys will be delivered to both locations by Navy vehicles.