Sweet Briar students help make difficult tasks easier for area nonprofit

The intricate, three-step assembly process can be difficult even for the most dexterous person.

Hold down a tiny spring with one hand. Slide in a metal pin and bend only part of it backward with the other hand. Repeat.

And that’s just one step.

For about 90 workers with disabilities at Lynchburg Sheltered Industries, the process is nearly impossible. In the past, only five workers could perform any one of the three assembly steps.

Sweet Briar College hopes to change that by creating tools that simplify the process.

This semester, a class of mostly engineering students collaborated with LSI, a nonprofit company which employs its workers with the aim of helping them gain greater independence through vocational training and work.

The manufacturer mostly works with corrugated cardboard boxes. But LSI also takes orders from Flowserve Corp. to assemble contact blocks that limit how wide someone can open a pipeline valve.

The blocks include a series of spring-loaded switches that must be assembled perfectly to fit together just right.

“It’s a complicated little assembly,” said Cecil Kendrick, executive director of LSI.

The class of 15 students first created designs for how they would make each step easier for workers. Then, with the help of Jeff Schleicher’s shop students at E.C. Glass High School, they made prototypes of the designs.

“Our goal is to increase the number of people who can complete the task,” said Hank Yochum, director of the engineering program who is teaching the class with Professor Scott Pierce.

The class is divided into three groups to address each step of assembly.

Before starting, students tried the assembly process by hand — and each failed, Yochum said.

“There were springs flying off, and pins landing on the ground.”

So, they set out to make the process easier.

They built tools, such as a spring wedge and “fin” crimper that aim to make holding and manipulating components of the switches and the base plate easier.

They designed an aluminum disc that attaches to an air press so the worker doesn’t have to hold the components up close to the finger-pinching machine;

And they built a housing to simplify the final block assembly.

Not everything works perfectly yet. After testing the prototypes at LSI Thursday, students have a few weeks until the end of the semester to modify the tools and maximize their benefits, Pierce said.

Once the final designs are set, they’ll decide how many to make.

Pierce also hopes to return to LSI in the fall and see if any of the tools are still in use.

“That’s how you can tell if it was really good,” he said.

Sweet Briar senior Amanda Baker said it has been a fulfilling class.

“We spent so much time on this — it’s so exciting to see it work,” she said Thursday at LSI.

Gail Hubbard, who trains LSI workers on how to assemble the blocks, said she thinks the prototype tools make the assembly process easier. She hopes to train another 10-15 workers.

And although it wasn’t the aim, the tools also make the assembly quicker, which benefits workers who get paid per part.

She previously spent 64 seconds on one aspect of the assembly; on her second try with the new tools, she shaved 11 seconds off that time.

“And I’m sure I’m going to get better,” she told Sweet Briar students. “Y’all have made our lives much easier.”