A 3-year-old boy with a rare chromosomal disorder can’t ask for much. But a group of high school engineers in suburban Dallas decided to build him everything he needed anyway.
Students at Trinity Christian Academy in Addison, Texas, have spent months designing and constructing a suite of custom assistive devices for James Hauser, a toddler diagnosed with 1p36 deletion syndrome — a rare genetic condition that affects development, muscle tone, and sensory processing. The project, part of TCA’s Honors Engineering Design capstone program, was presented to the Hauser family on April 1. The devices aren’t prototypes gathering dust on a shelf. They’re going straight into the home.
Built for James, From the Ground Up
The students didn’t just sketch ideas on graph paper. They visited the Hauser home, walked through the family’s daily routines, and assessed exactly where James struggles most. What came out of that process was a reclinable bath chair, a flotation pool device, and an interactive play table — complete with lights, sounds, and a mounted book holder. That last detail matters more than it might sound. “He loves his books, so we made him a little book reader,” one student explained. “The table also protects him if he flings forward or backward. It’s all about keeping him safe while engaging him.”
Safety and stimulation, engineered together. For a child like James, that combination isn’t a luxury — it’s the whole ballgame.
Student Scotty Drake, who worked on the bath chair, described the moment the family first saw the finished products. “To finally show them what they were going to use and see their smiles,” he said, “it was awesome.” Short sentence. But it carries weight.
More Than a Grade
Behind the project is teacher Teresa Rosario, who oversees TCA’s engineering design curriculum and makes no apologies for the program’s openly values-driven mission. “This one makes an eternal impact on the family,” Rosario noted. “It ignites the students’ desire to do their best — not just for a grade, but for James and his family.” That’s not language you’d typically hear in a public school engineering class. But at TCA, a private Pre-K through 12 institution operating under a Christian mission, it’s entirely on-brand — and, judging by the results, it appears to work.
The school, located at 17001 Addison Road in Addison, offers Advanced Placement courses, competitive athletics, and a full Project Lead The Way curriculum. A new middle school facility opened on campus in 2022. The engineering program fits neatly into a broader push to position TCA as a serious academic institution — not just a faith-based alternative to public schooling.
James Isn’t the First
Worth noting: this isn’t a one-off. TCA’s capstone engineering program has previously built assistive devices for other children with disabilities — including light boxes and modified jumpers for a child named Gideon, who has Peroxisomal Biogenesis Disorder. The throughline is consistent. Rosario has said she wants her students to understand “to the core of their heart that they can use STEM fields to bless others in the world.” Whether or not that framing resonates with every reader, the practical outcomes are hard to dispute.
The Hauser family clearly feels it. One family member — a TCA alumnus — put it plainly: “It’s really cool that my alma mater is doing this, taking an interest in children with special needs,” he said. “It means a lot to me, it means a lot to our family.”
What It Means for James
Still, what does any of this actually change day-to-day for a 3-year-old who can’t fully communicate what he needs? Quite a bit, it turns out. “Having a table at the right height, toys in the right place — it’s going to be amazing for him,” one student reflected. Small adjustments. Enormous difference.
There’s something quietly remarkable about a group of teenagers — navigating their own stress, grades, and college anxieties — pausing long enough to engineer a better bath chair for a toddler they’d never met. They didn’t have to get it right. But they did. And James gets to keep it.
