Students at Abbey Park High School in Oakville, Ontario built more than 80 devices for children with disabilities as part of our Hacking for the Holidays (new window) campaign.

In early December, the students first switch-adapted 42 toys. Deciding that the toys could use some switches to go with them, the students later built 42 Interact Switches. The toys and switches were donated to SickKids Hospital in time for the holidays.

“It was an hour and a half. They just breezed through it,” says Tara Ashley, a woodwork teacher and head of technology at the school, about the switch build. “They dug right in. I thought for sure it would take a lot longer… I had booked two afternoons to do it. I never thought that they would have done it in one shot.”

The students had varying degrees of experience heading into the build events. Some of the students, as young as Grade 9, had little soldering experience, while some of the more senior computer engineering students had a lot more experience.

“We just kind of asked the kids, what they wanted to do, what they felt comfortable doing and then we just set up an assembly line,” she says. “We had different stations. Some kids assembled the little plastic parts, and some kids soldered the electronics. There were also people putting them all together, and then at the end, we had kids doing the quality control. So, they had to test them, make sure they all worked, and if they didn’t, then we had to take them apart and figure out why they didn’t work.”

Tara particularly appreciates that the Makers Making Change (new window) STEM With Purpose (new window) workshops gave students to make a difference in their community.

“It’s great to create opportunities for kids to do good things for other people,” she says. “It’s just a great way for them to give back and it just increases their level of empathy for people in their community.”

Teachers at Abbey Park High School have also signed up to become Clubs That Care (new window) leaders to host more build events in the future.

This post originally appeared on the Makers Making Change (new window) website.