EPFL Assistive Technologies Challenge

Description

(Spring semester only)

The Assistive Technologies Challenge, will give students the opportunity to design and develop meaningful technological solutions for and with people with disabilities. The challenge aims at giving the students first hand experience in working with real end-users and to understand how their skills and abilities can have a positive impact on society.

The challenge will be offered as a group semester project and is open to all sections within STI (SGM, SMT, SEL, SMX), SV and IC.

Multidisciplinary teams of 3-5 students will be assigned a "challenger" with a specific need to solve an everyday challenge. By adopting a "user-in-the-loop" approach, the students will translate these needs into tangible goals. Over the course of several iterations, they will work towards achieving these goals by following an established product design methodology for medical devices.

A project assistant will advise each team by monitoring their progress and providing them guidance during the semester. Furthermore, the students will participate in interactive workshops focused on user-centric design, prototyping methods, project resource management, and the ethical considerations of working with humans within the sphere of medical technologies. The teams will have access to prototyping facilities, and will be assigned a gracious budget to purchase materials & services.

End-of-project objective

Build a functional prototype helping a real person suffering with disability

Number of students

There are usually 15-20 students doing this project.

Contact

Inscription https://robot-competition.epfl.ch/auth/registration

Project coordinator

Responsible professor

Member list

Display current project members (EPFL login required)