Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering Design Projects for Persons with Disabilities

Wright State University, Dayton OH

Investigators

Abstract

0439622 Phillips The objectives of this five-year project are: (1) to allow undergraduate biomedical engineering and human factors engineering students to conduct their senior-year design projects in the area of rehabilitation engineering, and (2) to focus the design projects toward specific elementary school students (Gorman Elementary School) and other individuals who have significant orthopedic and neurological disabilities. Wright State University's (WSU) Department of Biomedical, Industrial and Human Factors Engineering, offers two senior-year design course sequences required of all departmental majors prior to graduation. Since 1987, through support from the National Science Foundation, ninety-two undergraduate bioengineering design projects have been successfully completed. These projects have involved a total of two hundred and twenty-two WSU senior engineering students. A written report about the newly completed design projects will be submitted annually for the NSF-funded review of Engineering Senior Design Projects to Aid Persons with Disabilities, published from 1989 to the present. Intellectual Merit: This design projects activity will advance knowledge and understanding of rehabilitation engineering and two other engineering fields: human factors engineering and industrial systems engineering. The human factors engineering students and the industrial systems engineering students are team-members with the biomedical engineering students in a focused, design project endeavor that allows the creative interaction of engineering students (of different specialties) toward their common goal. Broader Impacts: By overcoming significant orthopedic and neurological disabilities in otherwise intellectually competent individuals, students will benefit more fully from their educational experience, and other individuals would participate more fully in activities of daily living. By exposing undergraduate engineering students to the field of rehabilitation engineering at a formative stage in their education, the national need for significantly more rehabilitation engineers is to be addressed. Gilbert B. Devey Program Director November 24, 2004