Experiencing Engineering While Helping Others: UMass Lowell's Assistive Technology Design Fair

In 2002 the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Lowell's College of Engineering launched the Assistive Technology Design Fair (ATDF) program for high school students. This unique educational outreach program gives high school students the opportunity to engage in real-world engineering design problems aimed at helping people with disabilities or special needs. Working with their teacher-advisers, design teams-- typically four to six students-- must identify people in their community that have needs that can be met using technology. Over a period of four months, teams learn and use the engineering design process to design an assistive technology product to help their disabled client. Each team has to define the requirements of a successful design, brainstorm and analyze possible solutions, justify their chosen design, and make a presentation outlining their design process and final solution. Their ultimate goal is to build a working prototype of their solution to present at that Assistive Technology Design Fair hosted at UMass Lowell each May-- and ultimately, to deliver the project to their client. ATDF is a noncompetitive even, and all teams who enter projects receive awards. (authors)