Carleton University in the Faculty of Engineering and Design picked up first- and third-place prizes Tuesday at the 2014 Council of Ontario Universities (COU) IDeA Competition after sweeping the top three spots last year.
The Innovative Designs for Accessibility competition, designed to break down barriers to accessibility for persons with disabilities, tasked students with creating innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions to real-world problems.
“Carleton students have once again proven that intelligent concepts and designs can improve lives and make accessibility a reality,” said Carleton President Roseann O’Reilly Runte. “Their accomplishments would not be possible without the expertise of their faculty and staff mentors. On behalf of the entire Carleton community, I congratulate our students for a job well done.”
Carleton students brought fresh ideas to the competition. From helping visually-impaired people enjoy sporting events and meet up more easily with their friends to making portable washrooms more accessible, three Carleton Industrial Design students came up with ways to help those who face disabilities. The designs were part of the fourth-year Industrial Design final studio projects, where students chose which areas they wanted to study.
This year’s first place winner is Jasmine Yeung, who developed the “Expandable Portable Accessible Washroom (E-Paw).” Her design makes portable washrooms more accessible for disabled people. As part of her research, she visited and volunteered at festivals to understand the issues and conduct interviews with field experts.
Tied for third place was Katie Roepke, who created “Ami-Go,” a discreet bracelet device that visually-impaired students can wear to know if their friends are in the room and where to locate them. The bracelet vibrates when a friend is near the user and vibrations on different sides of it will direct the user toward the friend. Friends can download an app on their cellphones that connects them to the bracelet; when the phones are present, they set off the user’s bracelet.
“It’s a simple thing we take for granted,” says Roepke. “We can be in a very public space or crowded room, and you can recognize your friend from a distance instantly – but they don’t have that capability. It’s something so simple, but a lot of times when they’re meeting up with friends, they have to plan ahead.”
Also a finalist this year was Ally Krug. Krug’s device, “Bird’s Eye,” helps visually impaired people better experience a sporting event with a device that sits on the user’s lap and translates movements that a sighted person would see on the field.
The winners, chosen from 10 finalists from across the province, were announced in Toronto by Wendy Tilford, deputy minister of Economic Development and Innovation, and COU Chair Max Blouw at the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Discovery Conference.
In 2013, Carleton students swept the awards, with first-, second- and third-place winners overall. Winning designs included a prosthetic hand produced on a 3-D printer, a variety of assistive devices for users in rural Uganda requiring better mobility, and a DOT navigation system that alerts visually impaired users to obstacles in their environment. In 2012, four Carleton projects were represented among eight overall finalists.
Ontario universities are committed to the provincial goal of creating an accessible environment on campus and in all walks of life. The IDeA competition asks Ontario undergraduate students to use their creativity to come up with ideas to turn that goal into reality.
The contest is supported through the Ontario government’s EnAbling Change Program and COU’s partners at the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario in the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Employment.
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