They can rebuild them, they can make them better...

Sometimes I forget that West Point is also a great engineering school.

"Cadets senior project designed to help fellow soliders"

WEST POINT — Sgt. 1st Class Patrick King reaches under the left leg of his shorts, unstraps his prosthesis and grins.

Ready when you are.

An anxious trio of Army cadets hands over their senior project, a bionic foot.

These engineering students at the U.S. Military Academy have spent the past six months working on the shiny appendage. Their team of eight cadets drew up the plans, wired the electronics and manufactured most of the leg's more than four dozen parts.

But until Wednesday, they'd never seen it in action.

King, 40, of Highland Falls, volunteered to give it a try. Harnessed to a metal frame arching over a treadmill, he hits the start button and begins to stroll.

Read the rest at the Times Herald-Record.

Photo by Chet Gordon, THR.  View the gallery.