WALKER, Mich. — A West Michigan community makerspace has given a Norton Shores girl a new way to experience the world — one 3-D printed part at a time.
Grand River Makerspace, a community workshop space in the Grand Rapids area, recently completed a custom mobility trainer for Ella Whitman, who was born with a rare genetic disorder affecting her eighth chromosome. The device, assembled by the family themselves at the makerspace, could be among the first steps toward independent movement for a little girl whose future mobility remains uncertain.
Ella's mother, Laura Whitman, described her daughter's diagnosis as a deletion, inversion and duplication on the P arm of her eighth chromosome. She uses a book analogy to explain it: a chapter with a missing paragraph, a section that's been flipped, and a passage that simply repeats itself.
"It then reflects on her motor skills," Whitman said. "She has a hard time focusing on how to use her arms, and the low muscle tone also contributes to the issue."
The condition is extraordinarily rare. Whitman estimates only about 100 people in the United States have been diagnosed with it, with just two known cases at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids.
At nearly two years old, Ella is not yet walking — or even crawling fully. "She does an army crawl, barely," Whitman said. "At two years old, kids are running, playing, going to the park, and she's with me doing therapy all day."
The device is technically called a toddler mobility trainer — not a wheelchair, Whitman is careful to note. "It is a trainer. It's to prepare her for when she is ready to use a wheelchair, or if a wheelchair will even be in her future."
That distinction matters deeply to her. What matters even more is the door it opens. "All I want as a parent is to open the doors for her," she said.
A community space built to make things — and give back
Grand River Makerspace, 25 North Park St in Walker, opened its current location in August 2025, offering community members access to tools and equipment they may not have at home — woodworking machinery, laser cutters and a fleet of 3-D printers. The membership-driven space also holds regular public events, including a monthly open house on the first Friday of each month, weekly Thursday game nights and a crafting event called "Sunday Crafter Noon" on the third Sunday of each month.
"Our inspiration has really been to become a third space for the community," said Josh Fennessy, who runs 3-D printing operations at the makerspace, "to come use and cherish and visit, come hang out and help each other make things or fix things."
The toddler mobility trainer project came to the space through a nonprofit design organization called Make Good Inc., which creates free, open-source patterns for assistive devices that community makers can build for families in need. When a mutual connection introduced Fennessy's team to Laura Whitman and Ella, the makerspace jumped at the chance.
"Giving back is one of the best feelings we can get," Fennessy said, "because we get to use our technology and equipment, but we get to do it in a way that's really, really positive and impactful."
The makerspace secured donated materials, printed every component and then invited the family back to assemble the chair themselves. Whitman said her son Wyatt, 3, her brothers and her parents all took part in building the trainer. "We built it as a family," she said. "It was very emotional to create that family bonding in something that we can give to Ella and help move her forward in the future."
Fennessy said watching Ella move in the chair for the first time was difficult to put into words. "It is very, very inspirational," he said, "and it's pretty hard to hold back tears watching her moving around in there."
More kids, more chairs
Grand River Makerspace is not stopping with Ella. Make Good Inc. maintains a nationwide map of children in need of mobility trainers, and Fennessy said there are already several families signed up in Michigan.
The limiting factor is funding. The chairs require significant amounts of 3-D printing filament, and GR Makerspace provides the chairs entirely free to families. The organization is actively seeking donations, volunteers and connections to charitable groups such as the Shriners or United Way to help sustain the effort.
"We absolutely want to make more chairs for more kids," Fennessy said.
For Whitman, the community that rallied around her daughter represents something larger than a piece of equipment.
"Having the opportunity to do a trial and error with her just helps open more doors for the future," she said, "because we don't know if she's going to need a wheelchair or if she's going to walk."
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