The Inaugural
Undergraduate Design Project Competition in Rehabilitation and Assistive Devices

Undergraduate students engaged in design projects related to rehabilitation or assistive devices during the current (2010-2011) academic year are encouraged to submit an abstract of their design project proposal to present their final product at the annual SBC meeting during a special top finalists podium presentation session. The objectives of this undergraduate design competition are to showcase the undergraduate design work in the field of rehabilitation engineering and provide these students with an opportunity to describe their work and introduce them to the Bioengineering Division of ASME, as well as to expose the membership of BED to the field. This competition is sponsored by the Bioengineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers with proposed support from the National Science Foundation.

Who can enter?
Any individual or team of undergraduate students who are graduating no earlier than Fall of 2010 are welcome to submit a design proposal abstract. The students do not need to be enrolled in a course or completing the project as part of their curriculum to be considered. All majors are welcomed to submit an abstract; however, if selected as one of the top six projects, at least one member of the design team must attend the Summer Bioengineering Conference to present their work. All authors of the abstract should be undergraduate students at the time the project was completed. If selected as one of the top six projects, at least one member of the design team must attend the Summer Bioengineering Conference to present their work (June 22, 2011 deadline). Project advisors should be recognized in the acknowledgements and all teams should have their advisor’s approval before submitting.

What design projects are desired?
Any design projects related to rehabilitation science or assistive technologies will be accepted. This definition will be broadly interpreted to include any device that helps people perform activities. This includes devices that aid people with disabilities, help people recover from an injury, or enhance physical or mental capabilities of healthy individuals. Specific projects can be checked for approval prior to submission by contacting the competition organizer. Projects must have a significant novel design component and cannot simply be a presentation of data from an existing device or strictly a research project. Projects should be completed during the current academic year. The abstract of the design proposal will be judged based on its merits as a proposed device to solve a problem, while the presentation competition at the SBC will be judged based on the actual realization of the product or a prototype of the product. The actual duration of the project (semester or year long) at the student’s institution is not important providing it was completed during the current academic year (between June 2010 and June 2011) and the team submits a design proposal abstract for the January abstract deadline (not a description of the product’s realized capabilities).

How is the design proposal submitted and how is it judged?
Students must summarize their product’s design proposal into a two-page abstract fitting the standard format for an ASME SBC abstract as found on the conference web site (“Senior Design Competition” paper type). While the abstracts sections may be different than a normal research abstract, the formatting and other information is the same. The deadline for the design project competition is the same as for the other abstracts at the conference, January 23, 2011. The design proposal abstracts are judged based on five criteria: 1) the need for the described product need and market potential, 2) the utility of the device and its novelty, 3) the technical feasibility of the design, 4) the budget and economic plan, and 5) the writing clarity and style. Each design proposal abstract will be independently evaluated by three judges.

Please read further details on the Judging Criteria.

What happens after the top six finalists have been identified?
In mid-February the top six rehabilitation design project finalists will be identified. Pending support from NSF, the institutions for each of the top six finalists will receive a $1250 award that is meant to support both student travel to the SBC as well as help defray some of the costs of fabricating and testing the rehabilitation device. The proposal abstracts that were not selected among the top six may be invited to present their work as a poster at the conference if they are interested and there is availability of space. It is expected that each of the top six projects will have a physical realization of their design, at least a functioning prototype used to evaluate the success of the design. Teams are encouraged to bring their product to the conference, but are not required to. At least one student representative from each of the top six design teams must register for the conference and attend. The top six teams will have their abstract proposal published in the conference proceedings.

What happens at the SBC for the top finalists?
Each of the six finalists in the rehabilitation and assistive devices undergraduate design competition will present their results in a special podium session during the Summer Bioengineering Conference. Student teams will be given a 15-minute period to describe their work. This will be the first public disclosure of the project for intellectual property concerns. On-site judging of the presentations will be made by a group of judges. There are five criteria for judging the presentations: 1) product need and market potential, 2) description of the device, 3) performance of the device, 4) economic plan, and 5) presentation clarity and style. The scores from the proposal abstract evaluation will not be used to select the winners from the presentations. First, second, and third place will be announced at the conference banquet Saturday night. The top six teams will have a description of their final design posted on an ASME website.

Please read further details on the Judging Criteria.

Questions about the Undergraduate Design Project Competition in Rehabilitation and Assistive Devices should be submitted to the competition organizers for SBC 2011, Lorin Maletsky, PhD or Martin Tanaka, PhD.