Tetra volunteers, engineers and technicians, design and fabricate assistive devices for individuals in their communities. Tetra volunteer engineers and technicians, and health professionals, work with their clients to make assistive aids or modifications to a client's environment so greater independence can be achieved, to enhance the client's ability to participate in any aspect of life, including work, family, community affairs, and recreation. Tetra has branches throughout the US and Canada. Tetra does not compete with commercially available products, nor does it service projects when there is funding available to hire rehabilitation engineers, occupational therapists or other health professionals.
Like Tetra, VME is an organization of volunteers of engineers and technicians, designing and fabricating assistive devices for people in their community. Like Tetra, it does not compete with commercial products. The original organization is based at Montebello Rehabilitation Hospital in Baltimore, and there are chapters in other locations.
These projects began as student design team projects in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Stanford University. More recently a similar relationship was established with the Industrial Engineering Dept at California State University, San Jose. The projects are initiated by the RR&D Center, and they fulfill an academic course requirement. For each student project initiated through the RR&D Center, the Web page lists the students, faculty advisor, academic course, and the liaison at the RR&D Center.
The National Science Foundation program that funds engineering student senior design projects in assistive technology used to be known as the BRAD program -- Bioengineering and Research to Aid the Disabled. On this Web page it is referred to as Biomedical Engineering/Research to Aid Persons with Disabilities. This remarkable grant program of the NSF has provided funding for engineering senior student design projects in assistive technology. Short reports of these student projects are published in book form. For example, I am looking at the 1993 book, entitled "National Science Foundation 1993 Engineering Senior Design Projects to Aid the Disabled", edited by John D. Enderle, and published by NDSU Press, Fargo, North Dakota 58105. It includes engineering student projects in assistive technology from the following universities: Arizona State University, Mercer University, Mississippi State University, Montana State University, North Dakota State University, State University of New York at Buffalo, Texas A&M University, Tulane University, The University of Akron, University of Delaware, University of Florida, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, University of South Alabama, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Wright State University, and the University of Wyoming.
This information on the Web is for students of this senior design course. One of the 3 types of design projects in this course is: National Science Foundation Bioengineering Research to Aid the Disabled projects. This site provides a course plan, and some of the useful information imparted to students in the course (e.g., specifications and standards, block diagram design, project planning, finding components, component procurement, oral presentation primer, design for troubleshooting, patents, product liability, and design report writing.)
These suggested project topics are offered to students in course BAE 451, Senior Design, in the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Dept at North Carolina State University, for NSF projects to aid inidviduals with special needs. Since these suggestions are published on the Web, you can peek at them to get an idea of what is happening elsewhere. Of course, you would want to have your students address the needs of individuals in your own community.
This page provides information for students of this course. It has information items on team projects to develop assistive technology.
RESNA is an interdisciplinary association for the advancement of rehabilitation and assistive technologies. It is the main society for assistive technology professionals in the US and Canada.
This site provides a searchable database on more than 20 thousand assistive technology products. These may be commercially available; or they may be one-of-a-kind prototype devices, or custom adaptations of commercially-available products, or do-it-yourself information.
Trace's Cooperative Electronic Library includes products (Hyper-ABLEDATA, and Hyper-TraceBase).
This site provides links to the 16 Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERCs) throughout the US, involved with specializations in assistive technology, and funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR).
This site allows a search of the ATRA Member Resource Directory, which includes assistive technology product developers, entrepreneurs, technologists, investors, policy makers, and consumers. ATRA's matchmaking services are intended to assist its members in developing, producing, and marketing their new or improved assistive technology products.
This page, which is part of Arthur D. Little Enterprises' Web site, provides links to inventor's resources, government resources, inventor organizations, publications, events, and inventing tips. Much of this concerns the patenting process for inventions of any kind (not necessarily assistive technology).
This is part of the Web site of the Washington Assistive Technology Alliance. It offers advice to the consumer, from an attorney, Frances E. Pennell, concerning obtaining funding for assistive technology.
This is a collection of links related to assistive technology, including some that are themselves collections of links.
If you know of a link that might be useful to someone who wants to become involved in assistive technology community projects, whether the projects involve volunteers or students, please send an email message about it to hga1@psu.edu Thanks!