In 2012, World Cerebral Palsy Day launched the “Change My World in One Minute” competition. They asked individuals who are affected by cerebral palsy to suggest ideas for a new product that would change the lives of people with disabilities. One of the chosen ideas was a solar-powered wheelchair. Graduate students at the University of Virginia accepted the challenge and designed this:
Here it is in action, with the team describing some of its functions:
If you want all the technical details, you can download and read the project report here. I won’t reiterate that information. Instead, I’d like to make this article a call for action on multiple fronts.
First, as an engineering educator with 24 years of experience and a background in instructional design, I’d like to challenge all science and engineering schools to engage in more project-based learning. While this is a relatively new idea in engineering, it’s been well established as a superior method of instruction when compared to the traditional lecture-lab model. But don’t wait until graduate school to implement it. Project-based learning can, and should, be applied at any educational level. Second, there’s a relatively new push towards service learning, where students work to solve a real-world problem that affects society. Service learning began in the human services area but lately it’s been gaining momentum in the engineering community as well. Projects like this solar-powered wheelchair give engineering students real-world design experience, teach engineering concepts in the context of a real-world problem, and contribute to society as a whole - the Triple Crown of engineering education!
The team from U.Va.'s School of Engineering and Applied Science:
From top left, Craig Ungaro, Duncan McGillivray, Dennis Waldron, Professor Mool Gupta (project adviser) Ankit Shah, Kyung Kim, Maria Michael. [Images and video: University of Virginia]
For its winning contribution, the team was awarded the grand prize of $20,000. What will they do with the money? They’re going to make a few improvements to the chair and ship the finished product to the individual in Turkey who posted the initial suggestion for a solar-powered wheelchair. Whatever money is left will be donated to United Cerebral Palsy. Let’s raise a glass to these students, not only for their technical prowess, but also their social conscience.
Dean Kamen - need any bright young engineers?
Here are some resources for project-based learning:
- A database of first-year engineering projects includes a list of projects that engineering faculty have created for their own courses and made available to the public. This is a good place to start small - just add one or two projects to an existing course and see how it goes!
- Project Based Learning in Engineering is a thorough guide to developing a project-based curriculum, complete with case studies, supporting research, etc. If you really want to go big with project-based learning, this site has a lot of resources.