Adults with disabilities have numerous special needs and engineers have the potential to make great contributions and improve their quality of life. The Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez (IE-UPRM) proposes to provide a team based design experience for senior Industrial Engineering (IE) students focusing on outreach to aid adults with disabilities and the visually impaired. To achieve the proposed objective, the design projects will be developed at several nonprofit institutions that offer services or provides employment for the groups of interest. Ten design projects have been identified in collaboration with the institutions to design and implement prototypes that will foster independence and self-care, improve the safety and quality of life of individuals with disabilities, augment their functional capabilities, develop and enhance therapeutic devices, and increase productivity for the blind or visually impaired workers.
Typical IE Capstone design projects are usually focused on service or manufacturing industries. Rarely, students focus on projects proposed herein. Students will have the opportunity to interact with health care professionals and expand their understanding on the contribution IEs can have on the quality of life of humanity. Students will also have the opportunity to increase their knowledge in the legal and ethical issues related to the design process. New knowledge developed through these experiences will have an impact on other communities by dissemination of results through presentations, conferences, etc. This will convey the message and it should have an impact on the process used by engineering universities in their planning of the capstone course project strategies. The research team teaches various courses requiring applied design projects and possesses ample experience supervising and mentoring undergraduate students while conducting projects in the island. As a result of the internal logistics of the IE Capstone Course, the department contains the infrastructure and collaboration network needed to support the proposed research projects. A key component of this proposal is the incorporation of multiple formative and summative assessment activities to evaluate the individual project success, student gains in experience and knowledge, and success of the proposed work.
With the Design Projects students will develop technical and professional skills to be prepared for the practice of the profession; develop awareness and consider ethical, legal, and societal issues relevant to a design project; complement the educational process with real life problem solving experience and integrate the principles, methods, and techniques of earlier course work into a problem solving situation. Students will gain awareness, sensibility and knowledge on the needs of adults with disabilities, broadening their IE knowledge. With three projects to be run each year the impact will be magnified as participating students will share their projects in the classroom with their colleagues and the community. As a minority serving institution, the proposed projects will broaden the participation of Hispanic undergraduate students in research activities. In order to broaden dissemination to enhance scientific and technological understanding, results from this research work will be disseminated through presentations at national conferences as well as in the departmental website, the Puerto Rico Assistive Technology Program, campus news and local news forums. Additional websites to share the results are: the Office of Disability Employment Policy, Disability.gov, and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.
