Assistive Technology product innovation through undergraduate projects

The final year or capstone individual project undertaken by students in Electrical and Information Engineering programmes is the opportunity students have to demonstrate their ability to integrate all their academic learning and use it appropriately to undertake a significant engineering project in a professional manner. The project not only allows them to demonstrate their proficiency in technical skills but also in a range of generic skills whilst offering potential bonus benefits. This paper proposes that projects that focus on Assistive Technology (AT) solutions to real disability related issues make both excellent project topics from a technical and generic skills perspective but also serve to raise the general awareness of problems individuals with a disability face in their general living and working lives. Such projects also, potentially lead to innovative new commercial product ideas. This paper starts with an introduction to the supply side academic objectives of the student first employment transition in the form of programme learning outcomes and graduate attributes and then describes three AT projects undertaken by students in SALEIE Project partner institutions. It shows that these projects are effective in all the above stated respects and that they provide an excellent topic for student projects. A signpost to a freely available source of disability related project ideas is given at the end of the paper.