This is funding to support the Student Design Competition (SDC), which will be part of the 2012 annual RESNA conference to be held June 28-July 3 in Baltimore. Today, between 40 and 56 million people in the United States report some type of disability, and this number will likely grow in the coming years as the baby boom generation enters late life. RESNA, the Rehabilitation Engineering and assistive technology Society of North America, is the one organization with an international focus that is devoted solely to technology for individuals with disabilities. RESNA's membership consists of individuals and institutions covering a range of disciplines (including researchers, clinicians, suppliers, manufacturers, consumers and educators who work in non-profit and for-profit settings), all of whom are dedicated to promoting the exchange of ideas and information for the advancement of assistive technology. In addition to its annual conference, RESNA conducts a credentialing program for assistive technology practitioners, rehabilitation engineering technologists and suppliers, as well as sponsored projects. RESNA's Technical Standards Board is the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to ANSI, the official United States representative to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), for the development of ISO standards pertaining to assistive technology and other products for persons with disabilities. More information about RESNA and its annual conference is available online at www.resna.org.
The RESNA Student Design Competition fosters innovation and creativity with the ultimate goal of producing technology that can contribute to the independence of individuals with disabilities. The first SDC was held in 1980 as part of the inaugural RESNA conference; since then over 225 designs have been identified as winning entries from among over 730 submitted by students from over 117 different universities and institutes of higher learning. SDC entries are required to represent the work of students ONLY, including the design documentation; both undergraduates and graduates are eligible to take part. Many past participants in the event are now leaders in service, research, and educational areas related to technology for people with disabilities. Some past student designs have been patented and are now available commercially. NSF has been a supporter since 2005. This year's funding will enable the SDC to be further expanded and enhanced, so as to include more entries and support for more design teams, especially from minorities, women, and individuals with disabilities. A call for participation has been posted on the conference website, and also distributed electronically to a large number of colleges and universities with engineering and design schools. A team of 5 judges will pre-select entries from up to 10 teams, from which two members each will be invited to attend the conference supported with travel and hotel funds as well as complimentary registration. During a half-day session in which the teams will make presentations before the judges and public audience at the conference, 5 teams will ultimately be selected as the final winners. Judges will have an opportunity to ask questions and make suggestions and recommendations to the design teams. A platform session will be held in which the 5 finalists will make presentations to the general conference attendees. All SDC teams invited to the conference will have an opportunity to present their projects in a poster session during the general conference time. More information about the SDC is available online at http://aac-rerc.psu.edu/wordpressmu/RESNA-SDC.
Broader Impacts: The annual RESNA Conference and the Student Design Competition combine to create a forum for interaction between working and experienced rehabilitation engineers and students who are about to enter the field. Unique in its primary focus on undergraduates, the event provides participants with experience and skills that help them succeed in their engineering and design careers. It further encourages and mentors students in various disciplines to become involved in the assistive technology and rehabilitation engineering fields, and also provides an opportunity for the students to network with their peers and rehabilitation engineers, many of whom participated in previous SDC competitions. To further increase the diversity of submissions to the SDC in future years, participants will build web pages to illustrate their design and design process. The content of all submissions, not just the finalists, will be captured and accessible through the RESNA website, and the information will be searchable through the National Public Internet Site on assistivetech.net and the ATWiki. Not only will young scientists benefit from this medium of dissemination, but professors and those who teach will also be able to share this information with their students as examples of projects that others have done, while service providers and people with disabilities will be able to search for unique solutions to barriers they may face.
RESNA Student Design Outcomes Summary RESNA, the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America, held its annual conference at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland on June 28-July 3, 2012. Intellectual Merit As a result of the generous support from NSF, RESNA was able to provide a total of 20 students from 10 design teams (2 students per team) representing 7 different universities, with travel and accommodations to attend the conference. During the conference, teams presented their projects during an onsite judging competition where 5 teams were named as finalists. The finalists then presented their design projects during the general conference as one of the 75-minute Platform sessions to conference attendees. All finalists teams (10) attended the Developer’s Forum and provided a brief overview of their projects to those attending the event. Each team was recognized during the RESNA Awards ceremony and presented with Certificates for their SDC participation. For 2012, RESNA received 21 submissions for the competition. Submissions were on topics as described in Table 1 below. Table 1: Topic Distribution of 2011 SDC competition Submissions Topic % of submissions Computer Applications & Communication 14% Cognitive & Sensory Impairment Technologies 14% Job and Environmental Accommodation 23% Wheelchair Seating & Mobility Technologies 17% Prosthetics & Orthotics 0% Other 31% Broader Impact The 10 semifinalists exhibited their designs during the Developers’ Forum. This provided an opportunity for general conference attendees to view in-depth the designs and to engage in dialogue with SDC presenters and judges. The student papers were included in the 2012 Conference Proceedings which may be found on the RESNA website (www.resna.org/conference/proceedings/index.dot) and were distributed at the conference on CD. The Competition continued efforts to reach outside the domain of the conference. The submission process was streamlined, requiring students to design rich-media web pages that represented their design to the judging panel. These web pages were incorporated into a blog site developed in collaboration with the AAC-RERC (Alternative and Augmentative Communication – Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center). Through the use of blogging tools, submissions are catalogued and permanently available to advancing students, as well as professionals in the AT and rehabilitation industry. The site has received over 351,828 page views since its inception in 2011. To view all the Student Design Competition web submissions, visit http://aac-rerc.psu.edu/wordpressmu/RESNA-SDC/resna/.
