Article

Schoolmate's idea expands his access

Sunday, June 18, 2006 • BY MIKE FRASSINELLI • Star-Ledger Staff

For an exercise in Mr. Detrich's math class, students were asked to come up with a problem-solving in vention.

One student in the class taught by Daryl Detrich at Warren Hills Regional High School in Warren County thought of an alarm clock that would dump a student out of bed, like a dump truck.

Another came up with "Cool Pants," air-conditioned trousers for those dog days of summer.

Anthony Bonelli's idea was born of necessity.

Bonelli, an 11th-grader with cerebral palsy, has limited use of his fingers but can maneuver a PlayStation controller. He wanted to be able to use such a controller to navigate a computer.

Detrich took the idea to computer whiz Gus Catalano, 17, who had earlier wowed the teacher with a program that simulated chess moves.

Catalano, a senior, promptly figured out a way to make Bonelli's idea become a reality. He bought an $8 adapter off eBay and last month converted a program that would allow Bonelli to use the PlayStation controller with joysticks as a computer mouse.

With the same joysticks that he has used to move infielders in a video baseball game and centers in a video basketball game, Bonelli is able to move a computer arrow.

"It changed my life," Bonelli, a sports fan, said last week from his Washington Township, Warren County, home, as he navigated Web sites such as espn.com. "It will help me in my career in sportswriting."

For Bonelli, who was 2 1/2 pounds at birth and born three months premature, every motion with his fingers is hard work.

But his mother, Diane Bonelli, noticed that one move he could make consistently and spontaneously was when he maneuvered his PlayStation controller.

"I kept telling everybody, 'You have got to figure out a way to hook this thing up to a computer,'" she recalled.

Diane Bonelli brought the idea to numerous children's specialists, who told her the idea was "too high-tech" and that the PlaySta tion controller would need to be re configured for the computer, she said.

"It's very frustrating when people say, 'Oh, we can't do it,' and a 17-year-old comes in and takes 10 minutes of his life to change a kid's life like mine," Anthony Bonelli said, sitting in a motorized chair with written reminders such as "4 to 5 Words Per Breath" and "Talk From Your Belly."

"I'm more independent," he continued. "I don't have to rely on people as much."

A New York Mets fan and statistician for his school's baseball and basketball teams, Bonelli has attended sports broadcasting camps and conducted sports interviews for school video programs. He dreams of being either a sports broadcaster or sportswriter.

Catalano, who was born in Spain, learned his first computer program at age 7 and will attend Rochester Institute of Technology to major in software engineering.

The two had never met until Detrich, a math and computer sciences teacher, brought them together recently.

"Both of the kids are just great kids, and to be able to link them up like that is just great," Detrich said. "Gus is one of the most talented computer students I ever met. I knew he would like the challenge and would love to be able to help somebody."

Catalano demonstrated the program for Bonelli on a laptop at school, and later visited his house on a weekend to set up the program on his home computer.

Using digits other than his bent pinkies and thumbs, Bonelli typed in three random letters: u s 7. He was ecstatic.

Catalano observed last week that his schoolmate was becoming much more proficient at surfing the Internet.

"I'm glad that he's able to ac cess something he hasn't had much access to," he said.

Detrich said that Bonelli has more freedom to do "things we take for granted."

Diane Bonelli said that it has given her child more privacy.

"I'm hoping that it helps him with homework," she noted.

Hearing what his mother just said, the son looked up from yet another sports Web site and smiled.

"That's secondary."

Opening more than just a Web site

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