GARDE: Equals: Enhancing Quality of Life of Students through Senior Designs
Funding Agency: NSF
Dates: 2012-2016
Faculty: Nathalia Peixoto (PI); Vasiliki Ikonomidou (co-PI)
The main intellectual merit of this project is the design of devices that enhance the quality of life of students with disabilities. So far one device has been delivered, and three other devices are currently being developed. Results from one project have been presented at the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America conference, and the design team was selected as one of the ten finalists. Broader impacts: we have so far trained 15 senior engineering design students. Even in this early phase, the senior design projects are attracting attention from the media, both internal and external to GMU. One of the projects involved the development of an automated camera control system. This project sparked a collaboration between the engineering students and Business School students, and a company was founded to explore potential commercialization of the system they developed. The company took part in the GMU business plan competition and their project was selected as one of the ten finalists.