11/11/2010 Jenny Amos
Written by Jenny Amos
Team A1 has been awarded $400 from NISH/DEED Financial Assistance Program for Assistive Technology Development Fund as part of the Ability One Design Challenge.
Ability One is a nationwide annual design challenge for undergraduate and graduate students to creative technological solutions for barriers that prevent people with disabilities from entering or advancing in the workplace. The teams idea is aimed at helping individuals with a deficiency of pincer grip function perform redial tasks such as sorting small objects. This has been identified as a need that would improve productivity in assembly plants.
The team will be applying for the national award of $10,000 in the spring semester.
The Idea to Product competition awards creative thought to a technology creating a match between a technology and a societal need. The Idea to product Competitions are early-stage technology commercialization plan competitions that aim for unique product ideas with clear market demand that use innovative technologies. The team is designing a system that they call PRACTICE, Pattern Recognition AppliCation To Improve Child hEalth. This design will improve health care to rural India using cell phone based point-of-care that includes basic diagnostics, medical records access, and tracking the spread of infectious disease. They will go on to represent UIUC to compete in the in the Missouri/Illinois Regional Idea to Product Competition in March at St. Louis University.