The objective of this project is develop an undergraduate capstone design program at North Dakota State University (NDSU) for training students in skills on robotic technologies that directly aid people with walking and manipulation disabilities. As part of the undergraduate engineering training, this program will be challenging students to design and develop prototypes of robotic devices that improve the quality of living for people with walking disabilities. Students will work in teams drawn from the departments of mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, and electrical and computer engineering. These teams will have to study the specific needs of disabled people by interviewing professional therapists at Bethany Retirement living facility and develop product designs to satisfy those needs. A total of five teams of students are expected to be recruited in each academic year of two semesters, and each team must show their prototype at the end of the year. Students will not only get the opportunity to learn the practice of engineering, but also will acquire teamwork and multidisciplinary skills, project management skills, and more importantly they will learn how to use their engineering knowledge to solve specific problems for the disabled.
This experience is likely to influence some of the students to take career specialties in design and manufacturing of devices for the disabled persons. The long term goal of this project is to increase the independence of people who live with disabilities by training engineering expertise that will design and develop appropriate new technologies for human mobility and manipulation.
Intellectual Merits: The project will contribute towards discovery and innovation in rehabilitation and assistive robotics field, which is an advancement in fundamental engineering knowledge. The project will also serve as another model for enhancing cooperative learning in engineering education while training students the engineering practice through assistive and rehabilitation robotics design projects.
Broader Impacts: It will advance teaching and learning at NDSU by offering opportunities for undergraduate students to learn the engineering practice by working to solve real-world problems for people with disabilities. The project also will help in building multidisciplinary teamwork skills among engineering students from different engineering disciplines, thereby creating a globally engaged STEM workforce of multidisciplinary nature that focuses on assistive and rehabilitation robotics. It can influence engineering students to specialize in design and development of devices for the disabled. Therefore, it is likely to improve the quality of living for more than 16 million American people who live with mobility and manipulation disabilities and their families, and also reduce the medical costs for caring people with these disabilities.
