Greater than 15 p.c of the world’s inhabitants—better than 1 billion individuals—dwell with disabilities together with hearing loss, vision problems, mental health challenges, and lack of mobility. EPICS in IEEE has engaged college students’ ingenuity worldwide to deal with accessibility points by adaptive providers, redesigned expertise, and new assistive applied sciences throughout its 2023 Access and Abilities Competition.
The competitors challenged college college students all over the world to make use of their engineering expertise to assist with accessibility points. The EPICS in IEEE Committee obtained 58 proposals and chosen 23 projects, which had been funded in early 2023.
EPICS is a grant-based program for IEEE Educational Activities that funds service studying tasks for college and highschool college students.
The groups, which embody college members and IEEE members, create and execute engineering tasks in partnership with organizations to enhance their communities.
“Some players with arm or hand deficiencies play with their toes, nostril, mouth, or elbows, or they use units not supposed for that function and are compelled to adapt. I spotted that if there was a devoted machine designed for such people, they’d have the ability to play and expertise the enjoyment of gaming.” —John McCauley.
The 4 EPICS in IEEE pillars are entry and talents; setting; schooling and outreach; and human providers. Within the Entry and Skills Competitors, scholar groups obtained between US $1,000 and $10,000. Every crew had 12 months to construct a prototype or answer in collaboration with its group companions. The tasks, which concerned greater than 350 college students and 149 IEEE volunteers, aimed to assist an estimated 8,000 individuals within the first yr of deployment.
The groups included members from IEEE scholar branches, IEEE Women in Engineering teams, IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu honor society chapters, and IEEE sections.
Initiatives included a sound-detection device and a self-navigating robotic walking aid.
The competitors was funded by the Taenzer Memorial Fund in 2019, with $90,000 allotted by the IEEE Foundation. The fund was established with a bequest from the property of Jon C. Taenzer, an IEEE life senior member.
The scholar groups submitted their last studies this yr.
Listed here are highlights from 4 of the tasks:
Adaptive mouse for gaming
Members of the adaptive mouse EPICS in IEEE crew on the College of Florida in Gainesville designed a tool that accommodates keyboard capabilities and can be utilized with only one hand.EPICS in IEEE
A crew of 10 biomedical engineering college students on the University of Florida in Gainesville designed their challenge to assist individuals whose arms or arms have an abnormality, so they may extra simply play games.
The crew constructed 5 adaptive mouse devices and plans to ship them this yr to 5 recipients concerned with Hands to Love, a Florida-based group that helps kids with higher limb abnormalities.
The crew included the keyboard parts of gaming right into a mouse, permitting gaming gestures and actions with only one hand. The 3D-printed mouse combines present gaming expertise, together with the inner mechanisms of keyboards, a Logitech mouse, and Microsoft Xbox controller emulations. It permits the participant to maneuver and goal whereas gaming with only a mouse.
Gaming fanatic John McCauley, a junior within the college’s biomedical engineering program, was behind the challenge’s conception.
“Some players with arm or hand deficiencies play with their toes, nostril, mouth, or elbows, or they use units not supposed for that function and are compelled to adapt,” McCauley says. “I spotted that if there was a devoted machine designed for such people, they’d have the ability to play and expertise the enjoyment of gaming.”
The crew used its $1,000 EPICS in IEEE grant to buy the prototype’s elements.
Making campus extra accessible
Universidad Tecnólogica de Panamá college students take a look at their microcontroller-based prototype, designed to assist make their faculty extra accessible.EPICS in IEEE
A crew of 15 undergraduate college students from the Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá in Panama Metropolis and 24 college students from 4 excessive faculties in Chiriquí, Panama, created a number of projects focused on people with visual or physical disabilities. The crew’s aim was to make their campus and group extra accessible to these with completely different skills. The tasks enhanced their classmates’ autonomy and improved their high quality of life.
The crew made braille indicators utilizing a 3D printer, they usually designed and constructed a customized wheelchair. The scholars additionally automated the doorways inside the engineering division to offer higher entry to lecture rooms and corridors for these with disabilities.
“This challenge shall be very helpful, particularly [in Panama], the place buildings haven’t been tailored for individuals with disabilities,” stated crew member Gael Villarreal, a highschool junior.
Whereas working collectively on the challenge, crew members honed their technical and interpersonal expertise. They got here to understand the significance of collaboration and communication.
“I realized that you must have new experiences, be sociable, meet and get together with new individuals, and work as a crew to achieve success,” highschool junior Gianny Rodriguez stated.
The crew used its $8,100 EPICS grant to buy supplies and prepare the group on utilizing the brand new instruments.
Serving to kids with listening to impairments
A crew of scholars from the SRM Institute of Science and Technology student branch, in Chennai, India, labored with the Dr. MGR Home and Higher Secondary School for the Speech and Hearing Impaired, additionally in Chennai, to construct a tool to assist kids with listening to aids and cochlear implants be taught Tamil, the native language. In rural areas, younger kids typically don’t have entry to specialised speech and listening to well being care suppliers to be taught important language expertise. The crew’s assistive machine helps native language ability improvement, serving to dad and mom and trainers assist the kids in language and sound acquisition.
The challenge is designed to offer entry to aural rehabilitation, together with figuring out listening to loss and therapies for youngsters removed from hospitals and rehabilitation facilities.
The kiosklike machine resembles an ATM and contains surround-sound audio system and touchscreens. It makes use of a contact monitor and microphones to entry duties and assessments that assist younger kids be taught Tamil.
The crew labored with 150 pupils on the faculty between the ages of 5 and eight to develop the prototype. The built-in app contains duties that target bettering auditory consciousness, auditory discrimination (the flexibility to acknowledge, examine, and distinguish between distinct sounds), and language acquisition (how individuals understand and comprehend language).
The machine assessments the pupil’s listening to vary primarily based on sounds with visible cues, sounds at low depth, sounds within the presence of noise, and sound route.
The audio system emulate real-life conditions and are used to relay the instructor’s directions.
The crew obtained a $1,605 grant to execute the challenge.
This video spotlights the challenges children with listening to disabilities in Chenni, India, face and the way the assistive expertise will assist them.
Caption: This video spotlights the challenges children with listening to disabilities in Chenni, India, face and the way the assistive expertise will assist them.
Self-navigating robotic strolling support
College students from the IEEE Swinburne Sarawak scholar department in Malaysia introduced a prototype of their strolling support to Trinity Eldercare, their group accomplice.EPICS in IEEE
To assist senior residents with mobility points, a crew of scholars from the IEEE Swinburne Sarawak student branch on the Swinburne University of Technology, in Malaysia, created a self-navigating strolling support.
The crew needed to enhance present walkers available on the market, in order that they surveyed residents at Trinity Eldercare to seek out out what options can be helpful to them.
The scholars’ prototype, primarily based on a industrial walker, features a wearable haptic belt that detects obstacles and alerts the person. Strain sensors within the hand grips sense which route the person desires to go. One of many senior residents’ most requested options was the flexibility to find a misplaced walker. The crew was capable of deal with the difficulty utilizing sensors.
“I gained substantial information in robotics programming and artificial intelligence and deep learning integration for individual monitoring and autonomous navigation,” one of many crew members stated. “Moreover, presenting our good walker prototype on the International Invention, Innovation, Technolgy Competition and Exhibition in Malaysia enhanced my presentation expertise, as I efficiently articulated its viability and usefulness to the judges.”
The challenge obtained a $1,900 grant.
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The EPICS in IEEE program is celebrating its fifteenth yr of supporting and facilitating service-learning tasks and impacting college students and communities worldwide