Grand Challenge Stories

The Wound-Pump, provides inexpensive, portable, sustainable Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) in all environments around the world.

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Many medical techniques are not readily available in the third world, in the military, for disaster relief, and in domestic environments. This can be due to a lack of electricity, high cost, and other economical constraints. For these reasons, a successful, chronic wound treatment, known as negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT), has not been readily used, although many patients would benefit: approximately 55 million patients in the third world alone. Aiming to expand this therapy, the viability of an inexpensive, purely mechanical simplified negative pressure wound therapy (sNPWT) system is explored in this project. The Wound-Pump, a bellows pump, is chosen for the final design, and is analyzed in preparation for manufacture. An air leak detection system, along with proper dressing techniques, is defined. Once sNPWT is proven to be viable, it is approved by the Internal Review Board (IRB) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) for initial clinical trials at the Shriners Bum Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Its high impact and sustainability further its application in resource poor settings (Rwanda, Africa and Port-au-Prince, Haiti) by the Wound Care Team. The Wound-Pump is the first device in our mission to improve world healthcare through smart design.

In the fall of 2009, five students from three different colleges came together to design a product that would make the world better. All of

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Water consumption is a routine part of daily life. In cities and public buildings, drinking fountains provide a means of satisfying thirst; however, they do not always provide a safe and enjoyable experience. Users frequently report issues related to cleanliness, water pressure, and ease of use. Unfortunately, this causes many individuals to avoid using drinking fountains. Instead, many choose to drink bottled water and contribute to the growing problem of plastic landfill waste. More often than not, plastic bottles are not recycled upon disposal. According to consumer reports, in 2006, approximately 50 billion (of the 72 billion plastic beverage bottles produced) ended up in landfills. This reality not only impacts the environment, but also perpetuates an inefficient and unsustainable mindset that allows resources to be consumed at a faster rate than necessary.
By focusing on the indoor educational environment, we designed a drinking fountain that reflects purity, reliability, and innovation. We were able to address users’ negative perceptions through the design of our fountain. Some of the product’s features include a "hands-free" activation system, a filtration system that is indicated by a blue LED, a covered drain, and a basin that is conducive to filling water bottles. This fountain will further stand out in the marketplace by being easy to install and maintain, while cutting down on long-term service costs. Our hope is that by making drinking fountains more attractive, reliable, and reassuring we can influence new generations to ditch the bottle in favor of a more sustainable hydration system.

A voice-commandable wheelchair: harnessing advances in robotics and artificial intelligence to increase mobility and quality of life.

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In the United States, 2.7 million Americans over the age of 15 use a wheelchair for at least some of their mobility needs. For individuals with
severe physical impairments, new engineering developments, particularly in computing, offer opportunities to improve their mobility. In our work, we are developing a voice-commandable wheelchair that is aware of its surroundings and can assist its user in mobility and other tasks. The wheelchair employs sensors to perceive its surroundings, a speech interface to interpret commands, a wireless device for room-level location determination, and motor-control software to effect the wheelchair’s motion. It learns the layout of its user’s environment through a narrated, guided tour given by the user or the user’s caregivers; subsequently, the
wheelchair can move to any previously named location under voice command (e.g., "Take me to the dining room"). Currently, we are working closely with residents and staff at The Boston Home, an assisted-living facility for individuals with advanced multiple sclerosis and other progressive neurological diseases, to ensure that our work is aligned and relevant to the goals and lives of people who use wheelchairs. Our long-term goal is to showcase how new assistive technologies, when designed in close collaboration with their end users, can lead to significant improvements in their mobility and quality of life.

Buckeye Bullet – The Fastest and Most Advanced Electric Vehicles in the World!

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

For the past 15 years engineering students at The Ohio State University Center for Automotive research have pushed the limits of electric vehicle technology on the race track. The Buckeye Bullet program evolved from open wheel formula electric racing, to battery electric landspeed racing, and now to hydrogen fuel cell landspeed racing. At each step along the way the student teams have harnessed the technology of the day, and pushed it to its absolute limits on the racetrack.
The most recent program, the Buckeye Bullet 2, was based around hydrogen fuel cells from Ballard power systems. The team worked to gain a knowledge of fuel cells that rivals any group around the world. From there the team worked with Ballard to tear into the fuel cells and increase their 250kW power output to over 550kW continuous, doubling the power the system was originally designed to produce. From there the team worked to surround the fuel cells with a world class vehicle. Each was engineered to the extreme.
Automotive technology is born on the racetrack. From disk brakes to seatbelts, the need for more performance pushes the engineering developments that eventually make their way to everyday passenger cars. The future will be no different. The innovations of this team will have a significant impact on the automobiles of the future. In the terms of “The Grand Challenges”, these developments will lead to sustainability of the transportation infrastructure and improvement of the urban infrastructure.

Students grew EWB-MIT from a small group to an active organization of 40 working on sustainable water solutions for Ddegeya, Uganda

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Engineers Without Borders-MIT (EWB-MIT) was created to fill a gap in the international development community at MIT and to take advantage of the vast resources available at the institution. Undergraduates Rebecca Heywood and Helen D’Couto helped grow EWB-MIT from a small group of students who hoped to take on a project to an active team of over 40 students working on water and energy solutions for the village of Ddegeya, Uganda.
Over the past two years, EWB-MIT has traveled on two assessments trips to Ddegeya in order to foster a relationship with the community, hear their needs and conduct water quality tests, borehole assessments and household and community level surveys. EWB-MIT is now prepared to send a travel team to Uganda in order to implement the first stage of the project: improving the community’s access to clean water.

A group of MIT students is developing a prototype lunar and planetary hopper to advance the exploration of the solar system.

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In light of the successful robotic exploration of many parts of the solar system, including the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, more interest will be focused on using robotic vehicles to explore the surfaces of the Moon, Mars, and other planetary bodies in the solar system, such as Titan, Europa, and Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). One way to advance the capability of robotic vehicles is to develop hopping technology, which traverses over instead of across planetary surfaces. The TALARIS (Terrestrial Artificial Lunar And Reduced gravIty Simulator) project at MIT seeks to develop an Earth-based prototype hopper, which will be used as a testbed for guidance, navigation, and control software for a later space-based planetary surface hopper. The TALARIS prototype utilizes a dual propulsion system, consisting of air-breathing electric ducted fans and impulsive compressed cold gas working in tandem, to simulate the differing levels of gravity that planetary surface hoppers will encounter.

A framework to assess the proliferation resistance of nuclear energy systems that is going to help evaluating their security level by using

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The problem of non-proliferation has changed from the confrontation between superpowers to the competition between state or non-state groups (proliferators), and the organizations in charge for safeguarding and monitoring nuclear activities (safeguarders).
The need for scientific and technical knowledge of the new nuclear threats is fundamental to inform policy decisions and to frame regulations that will reduce the proliferation risk.
The high level objective of the framework presented for this contest is to support the peaceful and secure deployment of nuclear energy by increasing the proliferation resistance of future energy systems.
The current surge of interest in nuclear energy calls to resolve the concerns about the appropriateness of the current nuclear non-proliferation regulatory framework for new threats challenging nuclear energy systems. Over the last decades, countries adhering to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) confronted the international community by building concealed facilities, by manipulating the configuration of their power plants, and by diverting material from their nuclear sites.
Strengthening the current non-proliferation regime, it is then needed to guarantee high standards of security for the sites that store, produce, or transform special nuclear materials. One way to achieve this goal is to avail of new tools and appropriate methods for evaluating the non-proliferation risk of nuclear energy systems.
In the last three years I have been in charge for to the development of a framework to assess the proliferation resistance of nuclear energy systems promoted by the US DOE. In November 2010 this project is going to finish and by then I will conclude a non-proliferation framework that I developed inspiring to the safety framework that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission plan to use to use to license the safety of future NES. The result obtained so far favorably demonstrate the possibility to assess the level of security of NES with probabilistic models and the allow scoring their relative proliferation resistance following acceptance criteria that we developed during this study. It is my conviction that this work has the potential to generate valuable tools and criteria that policy makers and regulators can use to assist their decision, and that can help the designers implementing systems less vulnerable to the proliferation risk and to nuclear terrorism.

A Better Glucometer for the Developing World

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Team Glucotank at MIT has created a novel, affordable glucomter for the developing world. Using design strategies that empower medical innovation in the developing world, they have succeeded in creating a sustainable, rugged, and appropriate medical device for diabetic patients in low-resource settings.

Targeting health, piping water, delivering hope: UIUC students using a fundamental interaction of nature – gravity – to provide

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

More than 50 students in Engineers Without Borders at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (EWB-UIUC) are partnering with the village of Ntisaw, Cameroon, West Africa to address the village’s most pressing need: clean drinking water.

The clean water solution will include a gravity-based water distribution system, spring protection, and a health education program for the community of 930 people. This solution will replace their current water sources, which are contaminated by livestock and clothes washing. The village of Ntisaw has mobilized to drive this change, knowing that it will drastically reduce the prevalence of water-borne illness and help to alleviate the burden of carrying water from the women and children.

EWB-UIUC joined the partnership in Fall 2008. The team has already travelled to Ntisaw, collected all necessary data to complete the design, and raised more than $29,000 in funding. The PVC distribution system will take water from a natural spring several kilometers from the village and distribute it directly to the community. Again, partnership is the key: EWB-UIUC will contribute piping while Ntisaw will supply sand, gravel, stone, labor and the $3000 they have saved for this project.

The spring area will be surrounded by a natural fence that protects the source and contributes to the well-being of the community. Health and hygiene education programs coordinated through the Islamic and governmental schools will collectively serve 350 children of the village. Completion of this project will occur in the summer of 2011 and will require $25,000 additional funding.

Think Inside the Box

admin — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Verdant Earth Technologies is a venture developed by two University of Arizona alumni based upon their graduate research. The company manufactures agricultural systems designed to fit inside a standard shipping container. Growing fresh produce without soil anywhere power and water are available. Using our systems our customers can increase yields a minimum of 10 times over traditional production methods while saving considerable environmental resources.