About 16 % of the worldwide inhabitants—greater than 1 billion folks—dwell with some type of incapacity, in accordance with the World Health Organization. Lots of the disabilities have an effect on independence and mobility.
Three highschool college students engaged on innovations to assist folks with disabilities restore motion, translate ideas, and navigate tough terrain had their work showcased at Regeneron’s International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), held in Could in Phoenix. Their initiatives earned them this yr’s IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship awards.
IEEE President Mary Ellen Randall offered the awards at a ceremony held throughout the honest. Additionally they obtained an IEEE President’s coin, which college students stated was a spotlight of their expertise.
Hollie Tang gained this yr’s IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship of US $10,000 for her wheelchair navigation system. The award is payable over 4 years of undergraduate college examine and features a complimentary IEEE scholar membership.
Partap Sidhum, the second-place winner, obtained a $600 scholarship for his mind-controlled lower-limb exoskeleton. Third-place winner Calvin Shang Hung obtained a $400 scholarship for his rough-terrain robotic. Sidhum and Hung additionally bought complimentary IEEE scholar memberships.
Established by the IEEE Foundation and administered by IEEE Educational Activities, the Presidents’ Scholarship acknowledges highschool college students who reveal an distinctive grasp of electrical engineering, pc science, or one other IEEE area of curiosity.
Controlling actions with a tongue
Holly Tang gained the 2026 IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship of US $10,000 for her Tonguage mission, which is a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface.Lynn Bowlby
Tang, a sophomore at Wilson High School in Hacienda Heights, Calif., secured the highest prize for her Tonguage mission: a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface. Utilizing tongue actions and a typical digicam, the interface lets customers management a pc and different digital instruments in addition to assistive applied sciences together with wheelchairs. The tongue pad, one of many system’s core options, permits the consumer’s tongue to perform as a directional cursor, whereas eye blinks function mouse clicks.
Tonguage interprets the individual’s tongue and eye motions into actionable instructions in a number of methods, such because the tongue’s place contained in the mouth and steady motion patterns. The system’s multimodality combines enter from the tongue with different facial cues.
The system features a face-tracking characteristic for error prevention that verifies instructions are coming from the meant consumer, disregarding anybody else who strikes into the digicam’s body.
That could be a essential security measure for a wheelchair-navigation utility, Tang says.
Accessibility was central to Tang’s mission. She constructed the system to run on comparatively reasonably priced, available laptop computer cameras reasonably than extra expensive specialised {hardware}.
“Mobility situations don’t discriminate,” she says. “They’ll have an effect on anybody of any earnings, gender, and socioeconomic standing.”
Tang initially imagined Tonguage as a easy substitute for a keyboard and mouse. The extra analysis she did, although, the extra she realized that it may supply autonomy via purposes reminiscent of wheelchair navigation, robotic arm management, and gaming, she says.
“We’re so targeted on making an attempt to provide folks autonomy over simply fundamental human duties that we regularly miss issues like gaming,” she says. “They deserve the liberty to play video games and luxuriate in leisure as nicely.”
Tang, who plans to pursue biomedical engineering, says a go to to a rehabilitation heart solidified her function.
“Together with empathy in your technological answer is so necessary,” she says. “Empathy is difficult to show in a classroom, however it may be realized via expertise, and thru really assembly folks whose lives your work may change.”
Thoughts-controlled exoskeleton
Sidhu, a junior at Bethpage High School, in New York, took second place for NeuroGait, a mind-controlled, lower-limb exoskeleton. He says he was impressed by his volunteer work at a group heart that lacked elevators. He noticed people with mobility points battle to navigate the three flights of stairs.
NeuroGait operates by studying the Bereitschaftspotential (BP), a faint electrical sample that emerges one to 2 seconds earlier than an individual consciously initiates motion. Utilizing a customized electroencephalogram (EEG) headset and a convolutional neural community (CNN), the system classifies meant actions and sends instructions to a 3D-printed exoskeleton. Relatively than inflexible motors, the go well with depends on pneumatic artificial muscles that Sidhu designed to imitate human anatomy.
“The pneumatic artificial muscle in itself is so compliant that it’s capable of alter to the restrictions of the human physique,” he says.
The technical specs are placing: The CNN achieves a 99.9 % accuracy in detecting an individual’s meant motion, whereas the complete system—from the mind’s sign to bodily motion—operates at 95.2 % accuracy, in accordance with the outcomes from 500 trials Sidhu performed.
Maybe most impressively, Sidhu constructed your entire system for about $276, lower than 1 % of the $40,000 to $100,000 price ticket of economic exoskeletons, in accordance with a 2025 revenue report from Roots Evaluation.
He says he hopes to deliver NeuroGait to the group heart the place the thought for the mission started.
He attributes his success to staying present with analysis from establishments and organizations reminiscent of Boston Dynamics and MIT.
“To achieve success in analysis,” he says, “you need to know what’s being executed proper now.”
A spider-inspired robotic
Hung, a sophomore at El Cerrito High School, in California, took third place for Math Into Motion: Robotic Hexapod for Hazardous Environments. The six-legged robotic is designed to traverse terrain too unstable for people or typical robotic programs.
With solely weeks earlier than the science honest deadline for entries and no prior electrical engineering expertise, Hung started with an thought impressed by his curiosity in spaceflight: an insectlike robotic. He had spent years watching rovers reminiscent of Curiosity and Perseverance battle on uneven surfaces, main him to hypothesize {that a} hexapod design can be higher for rugged floor.
Because the mission progressed, the humanitarian purposes for his robotic turned clearer, he says. Watching information studies of the earthquake that struck Türkiye in 2023, in addition to conflicts across the globe, Hung tailored his robotic to be used in disasters. The hexapod’s steady tripod strolling gait, wherein three legs keep grounded whereas the opposite three transfer, makes it nicely suited to navigating in collapsed buildings to find survivors or to hold delicate provides reminiscent of insulin in battle zones.
The present model strikes utilizing three mathematical strategies. Inverse kinematics converts a goal leg place into the motor angles wanted to achieve it. Linear interpolation breaks every motion right into a sequence of smaller steps for smoother movement. And Euclidean transformations translate the robotic’s journey path into directions that every leg can observe, whatever the approach a leg occurs to be going through.
Hung taught himself methods to design a printed circuit board. He additionally taught himself 3D modeling, coding, and soldering. Determining the sophisticated mathematical transformations to coordinate legs going through totally different instructions proved to be the hardest hurdle, he says.
After seven months of growth and trial and error, a essential circuit board failure in his third model almost ended the mission, he says.
“There was a extremely sturdy second of ‘Ought to I simply hand over?’” he recollects.
He simplified the design and rebuilt it from the bottom up.
“I simply determined to double down,” he says. The fourth model of the robotic was the primary that efficiently walked throughout his lounge ground.
He advises aspiring engineers that “in case you discover the precise mission and it actually turns into your ardour, designing it virtually begins to really feel like enjoyable, and that’s what carries you thru.”
Because the three younger innovators reveal, the way forward for engineering goes far past technical ingenuity. A lot is rooted in empathy and a dedication to human welfare.
By initiatives such because the IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship, the IEEE Foundation showcases and nurtures shiny minds poised to form the subsequent period of assistive technology and robotics.
For Tang, Sidhu, and Hung, the ISEF stage is just the start. They’ll look ahead to impactful careers devoted to advancing expertise for the good thing about humanity.
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