Engineering with Empathy: Students Across OHS Team Up To Bring Cookie Business To Life

What began as a small idea to make holiday baking easier has grown into a powerful example of how learning, collaboration and compassion intersect at Ozark High School. 

The project started when engineering students reached out to special education teacher Emily Wright with a simple question: Could they design adapted cookie cutters for her students? The goal was to make an everyday activity like baking cookies more accessible.

“In introduction to engineering and design, it’s easy to get caught up in the ‘how’ of the software,” OHS Engineering Teacher Damon Carpenter said. “I wanted to shift the focus to the ‘who.’”

Carpenter described the experience as “empathy engineering,” giving students a real client with real needs. 

“In the professional world, you don’t just design for yourself, you design for someone with specific needs and constraints,” he said. “By using our special education students as clients, the project gained a level of empathy that you just can’t replicate with a normal textbook assignment.”

Rather than creating generic designs, students took the project a step further. Each student in Wright’s transition class worked directly with engineering students to design a cookie cutter based on personal interests. 

“Each student got to pick their own theme,” Wright said. “They went through a process with the engineering students drafting up ideas, drafting different things that sparked their interest.”

The result was a collection of custom, 3D-printed adaptive cookie cutters, each thoughtfully designed with themes ranging from cars to basketball players. 

“Mine is Pouncer the Panther from Drury University,” Transition student Riley Adamson said. “Because I want to high five him.” 

Every cutter was unique and intentionally created with built-in handles, offering added leverage and support for students with fine or gross motor challenges.

“Thinking of a traditional cookie cutter, it’s hard to pull it up,” Wright said. “The handle gives some leverage, so students have the ability to be able to make cookies like everybody else.”

From there, the project kept growing.

“After we had the cutters we got to thinking, ‘What do we do with the cookie cutters now that the cookie cutters are made?’” Wright said. 

The answer turned into a multi-academy collaboration. Culinary students will help teach cookie-making skills, business students will assist with selling the cookies through the school store and coffee shop, and other programs will help with packaging and displays. The hope is to feature a student-designed cookie each month.

“I just think the best thing about this whole model here at the OIC is that we include all these different academies,” Wright said. “When things start out as a small project, you really see how each academy and each component can fit together.”

Currently, students are learning how to make cookies with OHS culinary students. 

“It’s really fun to see the different ways people learn,” OHS senior and culinary student Gwen Sullivan said. “Working with sugar cookies is both fun and fascinating, and it’s nice to take a break from our usual routines and just enjoy the process.”

For Wright, the project aligns perfectly with her work preparing students for life beyond high school, and is helping them figure out what they want to do. 

“I want to work at a store someday,” Transition student Douglas Kies said. 

Both Wright & Carpenter hope the experience leaves a lasting impact. 

“I hope students can take away the understanding of how important it is to make things accessible for all individuals,” Wright said. “When we make things accessible, it creates a more inclusive world.”

“An excellent design solves a problem, but an empathetic design solves the right problem for the right person,” Carpenter added. “We want them to see themselves as problem-solvers who have the power to make the world more accessible.”

These students are just getting started and are excited to see how the project will grow, all while enjoying what they’re learning, and eating. When asked about his favorite part of the project so far, Adamson didn’t hesitate.

“The frosting,” he said, “and the sprinkles.” 

Look for their cookies, complete with frosting and tons of sprinkles, to be sold in the high school store sometime this spring.