Healthcare

Humana National Project

Challenge: How can we enable seniors with complex conditions to use digital technologies in managing their health?

Community Partners: Humana

Status: Project is in progress

Finance

Senior Financial Literacy

Challenge: How can we utilize emerging technologies to improve financial literacy for senior citizens?

Community Partners: Synchrony, AARP

Status: Project is in progress

Education

Edison Project

Challenge: How can we help middle school boys identify problems within their own lives and move to resolve them independently? How can we better engage parents in their child’s school experience?

Community Partners: Edison Middle School

Status: Project is in progress

Accessibility

Accessibility in Businesses

Challenge: How can we design a comprehensive and reliable accessibility checklist for businesses?

Community Partners: Open Doors Organization

Status: Project is in progress

Transportation

FCA National Project: LookUp!

Challenge: How can we facilitate communication between autonomous cars and other road users at multi-modal crossroads?

Community Partners: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles

Solution: Localize attention of the user near the steering wheel. LookUp! provides a digital interactive module at the steering wheel, embracing natural user behavior by promoting safer driving practices.

Healthcare

TherapAlz

Challenge: How can we reduce the emotional and physical burden of caregivers of people with Alzheimer's?

Community Partners: Circle of Friends Adult Daycare

Solution: Created TherepAlz - robotic therapeutic animals with technologies designed to help patients of dementia related disorders.

Healthcare

Public Health

Challenge: How can we improve student mental health on campus? (Project done in collaboration with DFA at Michigan State)

Solution: Created BetterU - a mobile app for university students that will foster an open environment when dealing with issues of mental health.

Infrastructure

Urban Flooding

Challenge: How can we help homeowners better cope with flooding?

Community Partners: John Street Water Shed

Solution: Created an educational and interactive website that lets homeowners plan the building of their rain gardens and other flood prevention methods.

Safety

Worker's Safety

Challenge: How can we reduce the risk of injuries and fatalities in the workplace environment?

Sponsor: Newell-Rubbermaid

Solution: Designed and built VersaView, the market's first universal, mobile, smart mirror. VersaView is designed to allow the optimal range of vision and warning signals for forklift drivers, to prevent collisions with other forklifts and pedestrians on the factory floor. The smart mirror features an LED halo that indicates objects as they approach from either side, a convex mirror that gives clear view of working area, joints for installation in any necessary position, and locking wheels to prevent tipping.

Mobility

Family Driving For All Abilities

Challenge: How can we use features of a car to liberate people with epilepsy with the ability to drive confidently?

Community Partners: Chrysler

Solution: Designed ResponSense, a sweat sensor and breath sensor that would alert a driver of a potential seizure and relay information to the vehicle and passenger. Fully equipped with dashboard indicators, lane departure systems, and autonomous cruise control systems, ResponsSense would allow drivers with epilepsy to feel as comfortable on the road as any other driver.

Waste

Electronic Waste

Challenge: How can we increase the use of rechargeable batteries and increase recycling of old batteries?

Community Partners: U-Cycle, Champaign Public Works, Campus Sustainability Group.

Solution: Designed a wireless battery charging device for household items such as a TV remote or Xbox controller. Also created an infographic to teach people about the harms of battery waste.

Mobility

Driving independence for older adults

Challenge: How can we make alerts and warnings more intuitive and less intrusive for older drivers?

Community Partners: Chrysler

Solution: Developed a “turning headlight” a headlight that turns on whenever the vehicle slows down before taking a turn, to help seniors with their visibility. Also developed “spatial lights,” an internal, colored lighting system that signals drivers of their distance from external objects.

Accessibility

People with Disabilities

Challenge:How can we increase workplace accessibility for wheelchair users?

Community Partners: Students of Nugent Hall

Solution: Created an attachment to plug and unplug appliances to wall sockets that would make it easy for people in wheelchairs to use outlets, no matter what height they were at.

Safety

Campus Safety (Application Project)

Challenge: How can we increase campus safety and make students feel comfortable walking home at night?

Community Partners: Students on campus

Solution: Created a mobile app for the university's Safe Rides program. The app automatically sends your location, preloads other information, and make the whole Safe Rides experience easier than waiting on hold on the phone. It aims to promote a more safety conscious student body. By increasing safety awareness, the mobile app can help decrease crime on campus and get students home safely.