Winter Quarter 2024

          
Perspectives in Assistive Technology
ENGR110/210

          

David L. Jaffe, MS
Lathrop Library Classroom 282
Tuesdays & Thursdays from 4:30 to 5:50pm PST

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Student Design Competitions


Assistive Technology, Rehabilitation, and Disability Related Competitions

Health, Medical, and Biomedical Related Competitions

General Competitions

Inactive Competitions

Links


   Assistive Technology, Rehabilitation, and Disability Related Competitions

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LiveWell RERC is sponsoring an app development competition for middle, high school, and college students as well as non-professional developers. Three winning apps will be selected to receive a cash award. We will also select two apps at random for prizes, so we encourage you to submit your project even if you have simple app.

The LiveWell RERC Student App Challenge is intended to promote awareness of the need for assistive and accessible technologies by fostering innovation through a fun, hands-on activity. Applicants are encouraged to submit mobile applications that address a need from one of LiveWell’s target areas, but apps from any area will be accepted. We are particularly interested in apps that can be used by people with disabilities and people who are aging. Below are additional focus areas:

  • Health and function
  • Accessibility
  • Money management
  • Navigation
  • Home automation and control
  • Personal communication
  • Access to public announcements and notifications

Judging will take place in May 2019.

Registration
Guidelines
Email

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ACM Student Research Competition - If you are an undergraduate or graduate student working on accessible computing or assistive technologies, we invite you to submit a two-page contribution to the ACM ASSETS 2018 Student Research Competition (SRC). Authors of accepted submissions will present a poster summary of their contribution to a panel of experts at the conference. The top three undergraduate and top three graduate poster presenters will then present their research to the conference audience. All accepted SRC submissions will be published in the conference proceedings and the best presentations will receive a prize.

The SRC offers a fantastic opportunity to attend the conference and meet the community. If you are selected to participate, ACM's SRC program covers expenses up to $500 US (courtesy Microsoft Research).

This year's ASSETS conference will take place at the Galmont Hotel & Spa in Galway, Ireland from October 22 to 24, 2018. Submission deadline for the SRC was June 18, 2018.

Hernisa Kacorri and Kotaro Hara
Chairs of the Student Research Competition at ASSETS 2018
src-assets18@acm.org

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The RESNA RESNA - Student Design Competition is open to undergraduate or graduate students from any discipline that has a creative and innovative design that will assist an individual with a disability to function more independently. Entries are judged on originality, quality of design, and usefulness to persons with disabilities. The RESNA SDC has a long history of providing a forum for the work of energetic students representing a wide variety of disciplines including mechanical, electrical and biomedical engineering, computer information science, and architecture. SDC winners have frequently moved on to become leaders in the field of Assistive Technology.

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The SourceAmerica Design Challenge is a national competition in which participants create innovative workplace technologies for people with disabilities. The innovations enhance employment options and increase productivity in the work environment.

Student teams collaborate with a nonprofit agency that employs people with disabilities, and/or work directly with an individual who is experiencing difficulties in the workplace. The goal of this partnership is to invent a process, device, system, or software that enhances productivity or helps an individual with disabilities overcome workplace obstacles. Inventions are evaluated based on their impact in the workplace.

   Health, Medical, and Biomedical Related Competitions

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The NASA Tech Briefs Create the Future Design Contest 2018 was launched in 2002 by the publishers of NASA Tech Briefs magazine to help stimulate and reward engineering innovation. The annual event has attracted more than 8,000 product design ideas from engineers, entrepreneurs, and students worldwide.

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VentureWell BMEidea Competition offers university biomedical entrepreneurs the chance to win up to $10,000 and receive critical early-stage validation of their ideas.

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VentureWell DEBUT challenges teams of students in undergraduate biomedical education to solve real world problems in healthcare.

   General Competitions

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The ASME Student Design Competition provides a platform for ASME student members to present their solutions to a range of design problems - from everyday household tasks to groundbreaking space exploration. Each team is required to design, construct, and operate a prototype meeting the requirements of an annually determined problem statement.

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The IBM / IEEE Smarter Planet Challenge searches for creative team-based student projects that can help students at any level learn about applying engineering, science, and other disciplines to solve real world problems. This program appears to be inactive.

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Industrial Designers Society of America (ISDA) International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) is a competition open to designers, students, and companies worldwide. IDEA has recognized design excellence in products, sustainability, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research, and concepts.

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James F. Lincoln Foundation Welding Awards Program supports arc welding education, design, and innovation at every educational level, from 4H to high school to college level. We also recognize welding excellence of instructors who teach welding and professional welders who work hard to further the scientific interest and advancement of arc welding. Recognizing both welding projects and technical papers, our welding awards program rewards the emerging welders of today and advances the field of welding for the welders of tomorrow.

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The Microsoft Imagine Cup is a global competition that empowers the next generation of computer science students to team up and use their creativity, passion, and knowledge of technology to create applications that shape how we live, work, and play. Every year tens of thousands of students from across the globe compete for cash, travel and prizes and for the honor of taking home the Imagine Cup!

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The National Inventors Hall of Fame Collegiate Inventors Competition (CIC) is a national competition that recognizes and rewards innovations, discoveries, and research by college and university students and their faculty advisors. The Competition encourages students who actively pursue invention. Students frequently come from science, engineering, mathematics, and technology studies, but creative invention can emerge from any course of study. The 2018 CIC will be held November 14-16 at the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, VA.

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The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Digital Manufacturing Challenge is an annual competition that invites student designers to use their imagination to arrive at an innovative design, which exploits the geometric capabilities of direct digital manufacturing (3-D printing) to the fullest. Entries are welcome from college / university students and high school students; both categories are judged separately. The 2018 Challenge's theme was custom automotive aftermarket peripherals.

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Stanford - Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES) Startup Challenge is a startup competition for startups at all stages that tries to find the most viable startup, offering $100,000 in prize money. The competition attracts over 200 companies a year, who are judged by a talented team of industry experts. The Startup Challenge for 2019 has not been announced.

   Inactive Competitions

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Clorox 4th Annual Product Design Competition & Tech Talk On April 3 - 4, 2018 teams of one to four members were tasked to come up with a new product innovation that solves a common consumer frustration, and then present recommendations to a panel of judges. No announcement of a 2019 event has been made.

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The Core77 Autism Connects technology and design competition challenges students to help individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to better connect with the world around them, and allow individuals who do not have ASD to better understand and connect with those who do. This competition not longer appears to be active.

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The DiabetesMine Design Challenge is apparently is no longer offered.

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Domus Call for Ideas: Age-friendly products promotes an international call for ideas, with the goal of bringing to life a new generation of domestic objects - beautiful, intelligent and easy to use - aimed at older adults. The competition aspires to the prospective creation of new collections of beautiful, practical, and functional objects, while promoting a design culture focused on the specific needs of an increasingly important population segment. This 2012 design competition does not seem to be continuing.

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The IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) apparently no longer sponsors a Student Design Competition, but they do sponsor a Student Paper Competition.

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The Engineering World Health Design Competition invites students to submit innovative designs for medical technology that can make a difference in low-resource settings. This competition is apparently no longer offered.

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The IEEE Presidents' Change the World Competition recognizes and rewards students who identify a real-world problem and apply engineering, science, computing, and leadership skills to solve it. This competition appears inactive.

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MassChallenge's Perkins Assistive Technology Prize appears to be no longer sponsored.

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Metropolis Next Generation Design Competition "This year we are challenging you to develop solutions that empower, advance, and include groups often overlooked in the design process (including but not limited to, our rapidly increasing aging population and citizens with disabilities). The form is up to you; consider how tech-savvy people are becoming and what devices, materials, and modes of transportation will stay relevant 20 years from now. Keep in mind what other groups will benefit from the design." This competitionn also appears to be inactive.

Some of this material has been exerpted from Capstone Projects and National Student Design Competitions IEEE Pulse - March / April 2011 - page 7 - Jay R. Goldberg.

Updated 09/06/2023

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