It was a dream-come-true for fifth-grader Isabella Nicola when she lifted her violin and played a few notes. She had long wanted to be a violinist. But Isabella was born with no left hand and a severely abbreviated forearm.
It seemed unlikely that she would get her dream, until a team of students from the bioengineering department at George Mason University got involved. The students were required to take on a senior project to graduate. Their initial idea had fallen through, so Isabella’s need was a welcome gift to that group.
The previous year, Isabella’s music teacher at Island Creek Elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia, had tried to help. Matthew Baldwin sincerely wanted Isabella to play. He told the Washington Post that his Christian faith prompted him to do something specific for the little girl.
First, Baldwin tried making a prosthetic arm himself. He built an attachment that let her move a bow with her left arm while fingering the strings with her right. That’s opposite of how a violin is usually played. But Baldwin’s prosthetic was heavy and cumbersome. He thought there might be a better option. He contacted George Mason University, his own alma mater.
The bioengineering team consisted of Abdul Gouda, Mona Elkholy, Ella Novoselsky, Racha Salha, and Yasser Alhindi. Over the course of a school year, they developed multiple prototypes. The project included plenty of trial and error.
The team worked not only with Isabella but also with a music professor at Mason. Elizabeth Adams provided feedback on what Isabella would need to play with finesse.
In April, Isabella received her final prosthetic. It was built using a 3-D printer, and hot pink (at her request) with “Isabella’s attachment” emblazoned on the forearm. The team calls it the VioArm. Isabella played some scales as she adjusted the fit. Then she played a few bars of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
The team had an additional surprise for her: a plug-in attachment designed to let her grip a bicycle handlebar.
“I feel very blessed that I have this amazing group of people,” Isabella says.
Isabella set her heart on playing music when the school began offering strings lessons in fourth grade.
“I’ve never told her no. I told her we would try,” says her mother, Andrea Cabrera. “Through these little miracles, it kept going forward.” She said she believed God would provide a way—and He did.
