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Project Ideas, Coaches, and Partners
I am contacting you regarding assistive technology
project courses at Stanford University.
In January 2007, a new one-quarter course was offered:
ENGR110/210: Perspectives in Assistive Technology. This seminar class
explored the medical, technical, and psychosocial challenges in implementing
technology solutions for people with disabilities through lectures by a wide
variety of people and organizations involved in this field. In addition,
students worked in teams with project partners, individuals with disabilities,
and coaches to identify assistive technology project needs and formulate design
solutions.
Offered in the Spring, ME113 is the capstone course for
undergraduate mechanical engineering senior students enrolled in the
three-quarter design sequence. In this course, several teams of three or four
students continue to work on their project - designing, fabricating, and
testing a working prototype. Course instructors, people with disabilities, and
coaches with industrial design experience assist teams with their
projects.
In the past several years, many projects involving
assistive technology have been undertaken. For example, past projects have
been:
- A Standing Aid for Children with Cerebral Palsy
- A Wheelchair Lift
- An Affordable Electric Page Turner for Individuals with
ALS
- Device to Facilitate Moving Elderly People around Their
Home
- Accessible Fishing Pole
- Aid for Donning an Artificial Leg
- Rain Protector for Wheelchair Users
The best projects in ME113 typically win national design
awards, even when competing againt year-long design courses at other
schools.
At this time, I would like to solicit your involvement in
these courses. Your participation can take one of three forms:
-
Suggest a suitable assistive technology project
for ENGR110/210 and ME113. The project must be of an appropriate scale so
that it can be completed in the 10-week course. The students all have
backgrounds in mechanical engineering and some may also have considerable
computer hardware and software experience. In addition, the cost of any parts
or fabrication must be modest. The project must represent a real-word problem
inadequately addressed by any commercial product. This is an excellent
opportunity to have bright students work on projects that solve long-standing
problems experienced by people your organization serves.
Please send any project ideas you have to me so I can
present them to the students in the first class session. The students will
consider all the offerings and choose projects that most interest them.
The project must be of an appropriate scale so that it
can be built in the 10-week course in the Spring. The students all have
backgrounds in mechanical engineering and some may also have considerable
computer hardware and software experience. In addition, the cost of any parts
or fabrication must be modest, no more than a few hundred dollars. The project
must represent a real-word problem inadequately addressed by any commercial
product. This is an excellent opportunity to have bright students work on a
project that solves a long-standing problem experienced by people your
organization serves.
To best convey your project ideas, I suggest that you
formulate them into three short paragraphs: Problem, Aim, and Specifications.
In the first paragraph, briefly describe the problem or unmet need for the
device you have in mind. The second paragraph should describe what it should
do. And the third should list the operational features and characteristics of
the device.
-
Suggest a project and become a remote coach.
Coaches are expected to provide weekly advice and expertise in the specific
area addressed by the project and must be available by phone and/or
email.
-
Suggest a project and become a project
partner. A project partnership fee of $5000 per project fully supports
approved project expenses (materials, services, and administrative overhead)
for ENGR110/210 and ME113. If obtaining this level of funding is not possible,
any support you are able to provide will be helpful ans wecomed. Projects with
funding will be given priority consideration.
Please contact me if you have any questions about the
courses and thank you for your project suggestions.
- David L. Jaffe, MS
- Stanford University
- Terman Engineering Center
- 380 Panama Mall, Room 567
- Stanford, CA 94305-4021
- 650/892-4464
- dljaffe -at- stanford.edu
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