It is difficult to determine who was most affected by the outcome - the 4-year-old born without a forearm who can now pick up items with her new hand and ride a scooter like her friends do, or the five Forest Hills Northern seniors who used a classroom 3-D printer to make Maeli Gottschak a prosthetic arm.

It was during spring break that Maeli's mother Laura Gottschalk, who teaches at Northern Hills Middle School, heard the story of a girl in California who had received a prosthetic arm and hand that was made from a 3-D printer.

"I sought advice from my fellow colleague, Adam Zavislak, because of his expertise with all things technology-related," Gottschalk told the Forest Hills Board of Education the night it recently honored the robotics teacher and the five students - Mitchell Dewey, Alex Dolce, Matthew Holden, Alex Koth and Connor Matulatis - for their accomplishment.

Adam Zavislak helps Maili work with her new hand while students Alex Dolce (left) and Alex Koth look on.

Gottschalk was seeking Zavislak's opinion on the organization that she had read about - Enabling the Future. "I asked Adam for his input as to if we should proceed with checking out the organization and, the day after spring break, he came flying into my room and exclaimed, 'Let's do this,'" she said.

Zavislak had presented the project to the five seniors in his Northern High robotics class.The five went to work and printed all of the pieces for the prosthetic arm.

"They spent hours monitoring the process of the pieces on the printer and continued with the technical part of stringing the pieces together," said Gottschalk. "They tied and re-tied and printed and re-printed parts and pieces, solving the problem on how to make the final product user-friendly. I know we will never know even half of the amount of time and effort they put into this project."

Design resources for the project were obtained from Enabling the Future. "It is an awesome organization," said Zavislak.

The entire process took approximately 20 hours of actual printing time and a total of three weeks to complete. In the end, the students created a movable hand that can open and close based on elbow movement.

Maeli uses her new hand to give Alex Koth a thank-you note. To Alex's left is Mitchell Dewey.

While many of Forest Hills graduated seniors are long gone, a couple were at the Board of Education meeting to accept congratulations and have Maeli personally hand them a thank-you note.

"It took a lot of time, but we got it done," said Mitchell Dewey. "It was a lot of fun and cool that we got to help a little girl in the process."

"I want to thank Mr. Zavislak for presenting this project to us and Forest Hills Northern for giving us a 3-D printer," said Alex Koth.

The 3-D printer is located Northern High School's 3D graphics class and was received with a grant from the Forest Hills Public Schools Foundation.

According to Gottschalk, the original goal was to create a hand to allow safe bike riding for her daughter. "But in fact, they created a world of opportunities and possibilities," she said.

"We are forever in awe at the talent, mind power, time and focus that went into this project by Adam and his student team.

The students could have selected a robot or vehicle that could change the world as their final project, but instead they chose a project that changed the life of a four-year-old girl."