Engineering Students Receive Prize at CREATE Symposium

^{Pictured from left: Commissioner of the New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities Willow Baer and President and Chief Executive Officer of NYISID Maureen O’Brien present College of Engineering and Computing Sciences students Tyler Hradek, Russell Wetzler, and Derrick Chiu with $5,000 for their third-place win.}

New York State Industries for the Disabled (NYSID) welcomed college students to Albany, N.Y., on April 9 for its 11th annual Cultivating Resources for Employment with Assistive Technology (CREATE) Symposium. Among those present was a team from the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences, who took home a top prize for their invention.

Each year, teams of engineering students collaborate with nonprofit rehabilitative organizations supporting those with disabilities. The groups are tasked with inventing technological solutions that may help those people succeed and complete their everyday work responsibilities.

Representatives from one New York Tech team who traveled to Albany were mechanical engineering students Tyler Hradek and Russell Wetzler and electrical and computer engineering student Derrick Chiu. Although she didn’t travel to Albany, another creative mind behind the project is bioengineering student Alana Singh. In partnership with AHRC Nassau, which hosts services like employment readiness and job placement, the team created the Transport Ready Assisting Machine (T.R.A.M.), a powered loading and transport carting system. The device is about the size of a shopping cart and acts as a miniature forklift to transport small, heavy packages.

“The countless hours we dedicated to this project were challenging yet rewarding, as we ensured that the machine was both safe to use and met the high standards set by our partnering company,” Singh says.

An upcoming contract with a coffee bean distributor prompted AHRC Nassau to seek a solution to concerns that disabled workers would be unable to lift heavy materials—some weighing as much as 50 pounds. With the T.R.A.M.’s mechanical and electrical computer mechanisms, users can transport boxes onto and off worktables, as well as off the floor and into the T.R.A.M. with secure operations and operator safety features.

A panel of community business leaders evaluated and scored more than 10 projects presented at CREATE; the T.R.A.M. team received a third-place prize of $5,000, to be split between the students, New York Tech, and AHRC Nassau.

“It was a long journey to see T.R.A.M. properly function to its intended design,” Chiu says. “I am looking forward to more events like NYSID’s CREATE to produce more ideas to benefit society.”

Another New York Tech team participated in the symposium in Albany as well, showing off their invention dubbed the BlendBot Ink Mixer. Mechanical engineering students Winston Wang and Skylynn Kilfoil-Greaves, computer science student Pranaav Venkatasubramanian, and electrical and computer engineering student Logan Edwards partnered with Spectrum Designs, a custom item business creating employment opportunities for those with autism spectrum disorder. The BlendBot enables users to mix paint in a safer, cleaner, and more efficient manner with its self-contained mixing blade.

The T.R.A.M. team’s success was featured in the Long Island Press, and both the T.R.A.M. and BlendBot teams were profiled in a recent Newsday article. The College of Engineering and Computing Science was represented at CREATE last year, too, when two student teams took home prizes for their inventions.

NYSID estimates that nearly 70 percent of people with disabilities in New York are unemployed. The CREATE Symposium answers the call for workplaces to better accommodate those with disabilities—the presented inventions empower that 70 percent to become more employable and lead more fulfilled lives.