The goal of this project is to provide undergraduate biomedical and industrial engineering students at Western New England College the opportunity to apply the principles of design to the development of assistive technologies. The proposed multidisciplinary design projects will be coordinated with a variety of organizations, both in the local Springfield, MA area as well as in the New England region. These organizations include Shriners Hospitals for Children in Springfield, Goodwill Industries of the Springfield/Hartford Area, Inc., the Eastern Alliance in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (EAST), and the Western New England College Student Disability Services. Services provided by these organizations include clinical care, employment services, and educational support for individuals with disabilities. When possible, students will apply universal design principles to their designs so as to impact the maximum number of individuals that could benefit from their designs.
Broader Impacts
The biomedical and industrial engineering departments at Western New England College have successfully collaborated on multidisciplinary design projects, offered as a shared requirement in each programs' senior laboratory course. The projects described will be completed either within the shared design project in the laboratory courses or as collaborative projects in the capstone design courses for each department. Students will be encouraged to submit their designs to a variety of undergraduate design competitions as a means of dissemination of their results. These projects will offer engineering students design problems with realistic constraints and significant societal context. Those projects involving EAST will have an additional impact. Following the mission of EAST to promote the participation of individuals with disabilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and careers, these projects may increase opportunities for these individuals to be successful in these fields.
