HOWARD COUNTY — Two different social circles, two different class schedules, little to no interaction, these all describe how Glenelg High School students Amitav Kohli and Ryan Kobylski were to each other.
That all changed in September when physical education instructor AJ Rosenthal tried to think of ways to get Kobylski to be a more active participant in his allied soccer games.
Having seen wheelchair attachments for players before, Rosenthal reached out to Ray Gerstner, a career and technical education teacher at GHS and head of the school's robotics team, to see if he had any students who would be interested in designing a device to assist Kobylski.
Gerstner reached out to the one person he knew would take the challenge, Kohli.
“Amitav spends every spare minute of his free time in the robotics shop. I knew that if I gave him this challenge, he would take it and run with it,” Gerstner says.
Kohli quickly began working, and over the course of a couple of days, he developed a model to have Kobylski test out in practice, making a lot of changes along the way.
Although the device is a work in progress, Rosenthal says it has helped tremendously in how Kobylski acts and plays on the soccer field.
“Ryan’s device allows him to play without assistance, which is huge. He feels more confident and independent, both on and off the field.”
Kobylski says that the new device on his chair has given him a greater ability to control the soccer ball.
For Kohli, the project was worth it on many levels.
“It was wonderful to see how much better Ryan could handle the ball [using the device],” Kohli recalls. “I’ll never forget the first time he used it in a game. He drove the ball all the way down the field to the goal. It made him so happy to do that, and it made me happy to see him happy.”
