Design Competition
The Project
Design Competition Winner Announced
Fist Prize
Miriam Zisook - Hug Chair - Affiliation: Somerville, MA
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The Hug Chair is a modular, adjustable seating system that enables children with physical disabilities to sit comfortably in a variety of settings. It attaches to the picnic style benches found in most school cafeterias. Designed to facilitate inclusion in social settings, the chair is soft, playful and easy to keep clean. It is modular and adjustable enough to grow with the user, and fit a variety of users’ specific needs.
Second prize
Muzaffer Yalgin Ozsecen & Richard Ranky
ReeMu The Conforming Mouse -Affiliation: Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
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People with hand spasticity can enhance their computer access thanks to ReeMu. The self-customizing, ergonomic exterior comforts and supports the users’ hand and wrist depending on their spasticity condition. Unlike existing products, operation of ReeMu does not require full or partial finger dexterity, but does require elbow motion. Improving Activities of Dailiy Living is the main goal of this product design.
Third prize
David Hayden , Michael J. Astrauskas, Qian Yan
Note-Taker - Enabling Low-vision Students to take Notes in Class - Affiliation: MIT
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Current assistive technologies do not provide a means for a low-vision student to rapidly switch between seeing the front of the classroom (a far-sight task) and writing their notes (a near-sight task). Alternatives, such as human note-takers and classroom audio/video lecture recording systems, force the student to depend on others or classroom infrastructure, and do not provide students with the benefit of improved retention via the process of taking their own notes. The Note-Taker solves this problem with a student-design pan/tilt/zoom camera connected to a Tablet PC supporting pen and multi-touch input. This portable solution provides students with a split-screen interface featuring live video and a digital notepad on which they can type or write their notes. Students can aim and zoom the camera with drag, tap, and pinch gestures on the Tablet PC’s display, and also record lectures for later review.
Honorable Mentions
Jeffrey Breugelmans - Sensible Interface Design for Physically Disabled Gamers - Affiliation: Northeastern University
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This design describes a novel gaming interface, aimed at persons with a physical disability. Due to dexterity limitations or mobile impairments, computer accessibility can become a serious issue. This system will replace the conventional keyboard and mouse interface, by using eye-tracking data and a gaming glove instead. This is achieved by linking Eye-fixation coordinates directly to camera movements and character movements and interaction to hand gestures. As a result, the user's body will become the controller, but in a way that is much less strenuous than other body-control type interfaces that can be found on modern gaming consoles like the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft's Kinect.An initial prototype has already been developed and tested successfully on healthy subjects, and more testing including the target population is planned for the near future.
Jerome Arul, Ilya Brukhman, Dante Cassanego, Hallie Sue Cho, Jacob Miller, Jennifer Milne
Pharmaglove - Affilitaion: MIT
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Pharmaglove is a carpal tunnel wrist brace design specifically for pharmacists. Unlike other carpal tunnel products, Pharmaglove is designed to be worn all day and actually supports pharmacists’ in their daily tasks.
Background on the Design Competition
COMPETITION CRITERIA AWARDS
JUROR DEFINITIONS
ELIGIBILITY SUBMITTAL CRITERIA
SCHEDULE SPONSORS
This competition focuses on the extraordinary opportunity to create great products and technologies that change people's lives for the better, that minimize limitation and facilitate living fully.
We invite you to pair substantially unmet needs with an explosion of new techniques, materials and technologies. Invest your creative talent to design a new product or technology, a product for the general market that works for the widest possible range of ability (Universal Design) or a specialized product tailored to the needs of individuals with functional limitations (Assistive Technology).
Focus on at least one of four life sectors;
Successful entries will also;
Choose your target market, at least by choosing a broad category of functional ability that you’ve chosen to address: physical, sensory, brain-based. You can choose to be more specific (e.g., older adults with low vision, children with dyslexia, working adults with walking difficulties)
Reflect good research into a specific existing market and fills a gap in that market.
Illustrate esthetic appeal integrated seamlessly with function.
Demonstrate innovative insights born of engaging representative users from the target market in the final design.
Explain anticipated feasibility and cost-effectiveness of fabrication.
Incorporate attention to environmental sustainability in materials and production.
Awards
The winner of the competition will be given the opportunity to have their design prototyped by a key design firm. An award 
of $5000 and other prizes will be given to the top finishers. We thank the Perkins School for their generous support of this competition!
Jurors
Ricardo Gomes
Professor and Chair of the Department of Design and Industry (DAI) at the San Francisco State University. He Manages the “Design Center for Global Needs”, dedicated to promoting design solutions to local, regional and global issues such as universal design, health care, the aging, community development and sustainability.
Ed Krent
Founder and Principal of Krent/Paffett Associates. A Boston based company dedicated to , design, media and product development. Ed Krent holds both a Bachelor of Industrial Design and a Master of Environmental Design from Pratt Institute.
Charles Carr
Commissioner of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission (MRC). Over the past 30 years he has dedicated his career as an advocate of advancing independence for people with disabilities through his many roles – social, economic policies and programs, and now government.
Sam Aquillano
Co-founder and Director of Design Museum Boston. And adjunct lecturer at Wentworth Institute of Technology and Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Sam brings his product design experience to the next generation of designers.
Judith Anderson
Professor of Industrial Design at Massachusetts College of Art and founder of A-Concepts a design & development studio based in Boston. She holds a Masters Degree from the Royal College of Art, GB, in Industrial Design Engineering.
Thomas J. McCarthy,
Director of the Universal Access Program of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. He has been committed to providing quality accessible recreation experiences in the outdoors for more than twenty years.
David Morgan
Vice President & General Manager of Perkins Products since 2005. He is responsible for all aspects of the Perkins Products Division, including strategic planning, manufacturing, R& D, sales and marketing. David and his team developed the Next Generation™ Perkins Brailler®. A new version of the most widely used braille writer in the world.
Definitions
Universal design…inclusive design…design-for-all…is a framework for the design of places, things, information, communication and policy that focuses on the user, on the widest range of people operating in the widest range of situations without special or separate design… or human-centered design of everything with everyone in mind.
Assistive or Adaptive Technology commonly refers to "...products, devices or equipment, whether acquired commercially, modified or customized, that are used to maintain, increase or improve the functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities...". Assistive Technology products can enable people with disabilities to accomplish daily living tasks, assist them in communication, education, work or recreation activities, in essence, help them achieve greater independence and enhance their quality of life. Assistive Technology devices can help improve physical or mental functioning, overcome a disorder or impairment, help prevent the worsening of a condition, strengthen a physical or mental weakness, help improve a person's capacity to learn, or even replace a missing limb.
Eligibility
The competition is open to residents of Massachusetts (or current students in the state) enrolled in a degree granting program, or young professionals residing in Massachusetts who are not more than ten years into their professional lives. Only teams are eligible with a minimum of two (2) people and up to a maximum of six (6) members. Multi-disciplinary teams are strongly encouraged to apply. Due of the nature of the design competition, involvement with at least one ‘user/expert’* as a design team member or a meaningful resource in the development of the design is required and the judging process will factor favorably solutions that give evidence of this.
*‘User/experts’ are people with functional differences that vary from the norm who experience every day how design fails and who can help to provide guidance on solutions (Ostroff, 1997).
Submittal Criteria
Written Documentation :
- Design Process - describe how the Team approached the challenge including market research, research about Universal Design and Assistive Technology and the engagement of user/experts. [maximum 300 words]
- Description of the design - degree by which the design efficiently facilitates or augments the users' ability and experience through the innovative, resourceful and appropriate application of design features. [maximum 300 words]
submit as PDF files .
Visual Presentation :
Diagrams, sections with scale figures, renderings, photos of models, photos of user/expert research, notations about materials, and details of some important features.
submit as (PDF) 20” X 30” printable sheets, two (2) sheets per entry
Entries for the competition must be submitted digitally by September 12, 2011 at 5:00 PM EST. The form of submission should be an electronic format. Visual presentation :Two (2) sheets per entry (PDF) 20” X 30” printable sheets (300 dpi) + the pdf files of the written documentation
Finalists will be notified on September 20th and invited to the awards program on September 23rd at the Hynes Auditorium in Boston. Event organizers will be responsible for printing the design boards of the finalists for display at the Hynes Convention Center on September 23rd.
Schedule
September 12 th – Final deadline for design competition submittals uploading.
September 20 th – Finalists announced (**Pending Jury Decision).
September 23 rd – Exhibit of Finalists, Winners announced.
Sponsors
This design competition is being hosted in conjunction with a set of events to be held on September 23, 2011 called Products and Technologies that Change People’s Lives – Universal Design and Assistive Technology in Massachusetts. An Expo, Conference and invitational policy Summit are intended as catalysts for a new Massachusetts priority. Events are sponsored by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) and convened by the Institute for Human Centered Design (Boston, MA). The intent is to make the rising demand and opportunity for universally designed products and assistive technology part of the State’s technology and innovation agenda. All the events of September 23rd will be at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.
Competition Criteria
