Design For The Disabled As An Interdisciplinary Laboratory Project
- Conference
- Location
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Honolulu, Hawaii
- Publication Date
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June 24, 2007
- Start Date
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June 24, 2007
- End Date
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June 27, 2007
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Biomedical
- Page Count
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10
- Page Numbers
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12.453.1 - 12.453.10
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--2199
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/2199
- Download Count
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438
Paper Authors
Judy Cezeaux Western New England College
Judy Cezeaux is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts. She received a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1984 and Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1989. Prior to her appointment at Western New England College, she was a Senior Staff Fellow at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown, West Virginia, performing research on effects of occupational exposure to vibration. She was a faculty member at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville from 1991 to 2000. Her research interests are engineering education, rehabilitation engineering, physiological effects of vibration, and tissue engineering.
Eric Haffner Western New England College
Eric Haffner is Professor and Chairman of the Industrial Engineering Department at Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts. Dr. Haffner received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, his M.S. degree from Illinois Institute of Technology and his B.Ed. from Keene State College. His research interests include engineering education, product realization, design methodologies, facility layout, and production system design.
Anne Kaboray Goodwill Industries of the Springfield/Hartford Area, Inc.
Anne Kaboray is the Supervisor of Rehabilitation at Goodwill Industries of the Springfield/Hartford Area, Inc.
Carol Hasenjager Goodwill Industries of the Springfield/Hartford Area, Inc.
Carol Hasenjager is the Program Director of Employment Support Services at Goodwill Industries of the Springfield/Hartford Area, Inc.
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
Design for the Disabled as an Interdisciplinary Laboratory Project Abstract
The integration of design into engineering curricula is important for the education of well- qualified engineers. While all accredited engineering programs are required to provide a major capstone design experience, the integration of design throughout the curriculum is often challenging. The departments of biomedical engineering and industrial engineering at Western New England College have developed a design experience completed as a requirement in senior engineering laboratory courses. The design project experience is in addition to the capstone design courses. This experience was used to demonstrate students’ ability to function on multi- disciplinary teams, design a system within realistic constraints, and understand the impact of design solutions in a societal context.
Introduction
A cornerstone of engineering education is design education. Accredited programs are required to provide a capstone design experience in which students integrate knowledge gained from their coursework. For many engineering programs, design education begins in the freshman year where students are introduced to the design process.1, 2, 3, 4 Following this freshman experience, many students are not required to implement the design process in a systematic fashion until they perform their capstone project . Integration of design across the curriculum is challenging since the outcomes of most lecture courses rely predominately on mastery of subject matter.
Both freshman and capstone design courses for biomedical engineering students often involve the design of assistive devices for disabled individuals.5, 6, 7, 8 Much of the impetus for these types of projects is the availability of funding from the National Science Foundation through the Research to Aid Persons with Disabilities program and its predecessor, the Bioengineering and Research to Aid the Disabled program. These programs have been providing funding for the design of assistive technologies by engineering students since 1988.9 This funding has helped initiate such capstone courses as Devices for People with Disabilities at Duke University.
In an effort to provide design opportunities for undergraduates outside of the freshman and capstone experiences, as well as a chance to work on multi-disciplinary design teams, faculty members in biomedical engineering and industrial engineering at Western New England College have developed a design experience completed as a requirement in senior engineering laboratory courses. Interdisciplinary teams of biomedical engineering and industrial engineering students, in collaboration with a local nonprofit agency, designed assistive technologies for disabled individuals to provide increased accessibility to employment opportunities. While the projects are similar to those performed in some biomedical engineering capstone design courses, the integration of such design projects into a laboratory environment, and the opportunity for students to work on interdisciplinary teams, make this experience unique.
Cezeaux, J., & Haffner, E., & Kaboray, A., & Hasenjager, C. (2007, June), Design For The Disabled As An Interdisciplinary Laboratory Project Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--2199
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