Faces on design: A partnership between clients, students and community volunteers

Abstract

This article describes a useful framework for bringing social entrepreneurship to engineering students. In the proposed framework, members of a team of engineering students are partnered with a disabled person with a particular need and tasked with finding, modifying or creating an assistive technology that would help fulfill that need. At the other end, that same student team is partnered with one or more volunteers from the skilled trade community who will implement their design and create a functional working prototype. In this partnership, faculty members act as gate keepers, ensuring safety and facilitating the interactions between the students and the other two stakeholders. At the center is a legal document that indemnifies all parties by ensuring that the client understands that the device/technology that s/he receives is modified equipment and must be used as instructed and under their responsibility. Although assistive technology development in the context of the senior design course is a fairly common practice in the US, this article describes the business structure and educational framework that allows for this technology to be developed rapidly, built professionally and brought to the client in a fairly short time. This provides the students with a very rich experience on many levels including interfacing with the disabled community, understanding government regulations and guidelines (i.e. FDA, CPSC) and creating a design that is well documented and easy to manufacture. The authors will use a recent venture as a case study and will share initial feedback from all constituents (client, students, faculty and volunteers) as well as initial assessment of the educational experience. A discussion of future plans is also presented. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2009.