Nicole Proudfoot discovered in high school that she really liked using technology to help people.

Proudfoot is from Costa Rica, and she and a friend had been thinking about the prosthetic devices available in the country for children missing portions of their arms. They were clunky, with limited function — often just a pinching mechanism to grasp objects.

The pair wondered, could they use 3D printing to create an affordable and more dynamic alternative for the kids. Around that time, they found out about an entrepreneurship competition for high schools, and they set out to develop designs.

“My school taught us about designing and engineering and had just bought a 3D printer. We started working with kids that had upper limb amputations and started producing designs,” Proudfoot said. “I think that’s what definitely made me want to go into biomedical engineering and explore the robotic side, because it tied in with prosthetics.”

A high school counselor pointed her to Georgia Tech, where another student from her school had thrived. And Proudfoot used her 3D-printed prostheses, which won the entrepreneurship competition, as the basis for her application essay.

There was just one problem: When Proudfoot got to Tech, she realized biomolecules and physiology were far less interesting to her than biomedical robotics. Suddenly, she felt lost.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.