by Nikki Dutton
8th Grade at DaVinci Learning Academy (Orlando, FL)
Honorable Mention
My normal day began by waking up at 6:00 am like every day. Wake up, brush teeth.
Lately that routine has changed ever since I had Gizmo. Gizmo is my 13 year old African Grey Parrot. Gizmo has psittacine beak and feather disease, a disease he picked up when he was being shipped from Australia, to the United States. This disease has affected his beak drastically, making the top part of his beak slowly deteriorate. Fortunately it's only his beak, which is amazing news for me because it’s not fatal. I had taken him to every vet available but everyone said it wasn’t treatable. So as I continued with my routine, I helped feed Gizmo and played with him for a few minutes, “Who’s my strong boy?” I said with a playful voice. Gizmo chirped and bounced up and down. Seeing him still playful always gives me hope. “I have to go to work Giz, I’ll see you tonight. Kissies?” I said to Gizmo, he then climbed up my shoulder and repeated the word “Kissies” to me and made a kissing sound as he kissed my cheek. I headed to work.
Working at a physical therapy center, I mainly work with people who have lost their limbs and have trouble getting use to their prosthetics. “Morning Gwen!” said Tanner. “Good morning Tan-Man! How's the arm?” I said to him. “It’s ok, picking things up is still a hassle, but I’m getting better at it!” Tanner said with an excited tone. Tanner is an eleven year old boy who lost his arm in a car crash and had to get a prosthetic. It’s only been 1 year since he had it. He’s one of my long term clients, I help him with getting used to the arm. The engineer that made his arm walked me through how to make the arm, since she knew I majored in engineering. I already enjoyed engineering, I was just afraid of messing up and having to restart the process so I never pursued the career. I love working with all the kids and adults at the therapy center, it gives me hope.
After I finished my shift at the center, I drove home and walked in my house. “Gizmo I’m home!” I yelled, as I put my things away. I was confused because I normally would hear a response. “Gizmo?” I shouted one more time. I walked upstairs and saw Gizmo in his cage, half of his top beak gone. I rushed him to the car and drove to every vet in town, every vet said that the only way to save his beak was to make a prosthetic for it, but not many vets are trained to create bird prosthetics. I was heartbroken. I even had to start tube feeding him. I was slowly losing hope for him. I knew he had a short life span but I didn’t expect it to be this short.
It's been a few weeks now. Gizmo is getting worse, he’s not talking as much, and won’t play. I had to go to work but as I arrived I noticed something new, there was a new man in the center, he had a prosthetic eye, to make it look like a real eye. Suddenly an idea sparked in me, what if I created a beak for Gizmo? This gave me hope, I rushed to the engineer that makes the prosthetics for the center. “Hi Ms. Meera! I have a question. What would it take to create a prosthetic beak?” I said in a concerned tone. “Well, you would need something to attach the prosthetic to, like a bone, then you have to think about cost, and material.” Meera said to me. I drove home quickly and started doing research. I discovered that the socket is normally made out of polypropylene, and lightweight metal. As I did research I realized how expensive it is, and I definitely couldn’t it. My goal was $7,000 dollars. I didn’t know how I was going to get this money so I did what everyone would think of - Fundraising! I set up a booth outside of the center, and even set up a GoFundMe page called “Beak-cause”, where people can donate money to get Gizmo a prosthetic beak. At first it was slow, but surely people started donating more and more, I got all kinds of donations from the patients, and the faculty, as well as people just passing by.
After a few weeks, I hit my goal! I first measured where Gizmo’s beak would normally be, from the beginning of his skull to a bit over the end of his bottom mandible and used that as a guideline first made sure to get all lightweight materials and then I created a plaster mold in the shape of the top beak, and put the cast in, then around the cast put a thermoplastic sheet, which would then vacuum-form around the mold, creating a base for the beak. I then poured melted plastic into the mold and let it cool.
I took out the finalized beak and it looked great. I took Gizmo, and the beak to a very good vet, that was a few hours out of town. “Hi, My bird has Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease, and his beak has slowly been deteriorating, I created a prosthetic beak, can you attach it to him? I’m not a veterinarian or anything, but I’ve seen it done before and I refuse to let Gizmo die.” I said, with hope that the doctor would accept it. “We’ll try our best.” The doctor said, showing a grin.
They took Gizmo to the surgery room, and showed me that they would be drilling a small metal rod into his Lacrimal, a bone right before the beginning of the upper mandible and would screw the prosthetic into the rod. I waited for hours, and finally, they finished.
I went to the recovery room and saw him there. Gizmo had the beak on, and it was a perfect fit. I was ecstatic! I I took him home and let him recover, watching him get better slowly, and start to eat on his own and get his playful self back. It made me have a sense of happiness and courage. I decided to create a business called “Restored” where I would travel all over the world and create prosthetics for animals that wouldn’t normally get prosthetics, like the smallest mouse, to the biggest elephant. That was my dream.
Annotated Bibliography
Brace Yourself
Griffin, J. May 24 2017.
A amazing story about a engineer that creates animal prosthetics, and how he travels the world.
How products are made, Artificial Limb. Retrieved from
(No name, or Date listed)
A guide through how human prosthetics are made, and the resources it takes.
Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease—Bird
Greenacre, C. 2017.
A article explaining Psittacine Beak and Feather disease, and the signs and information of how it’s transmitted.