Student organization focuses on humanitarian engineering for Columbus’s underserved

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Some believe that much of new product design benefits just the top ten percent of the population. Design for 90, an undergraduate student organization, creates solutions for the 90 percent who cannot afford technologies or use them due to a disability.

Students surround a table as they sketch ideas.
Engineering students discuss the details on a project for a local adult home resident with Design for 90 Co-Presidents Sam Redman (back row, left ) and Mia Feist (second from right).

“We try to aim to help those other 90 percent,” said Design for 90 Co-President Sam Redman, a third-year mechanical engineering student. “We look at different underserved communities in the Columbus area to see how we can help them out.”

Design for 90 has about 20 members from a mix of undergraduate engineering majors—mechanical, electrical and computer science to name a few—who think critically about engineering design. They take on focused projects, such as an adapted spoon for a local adult home resident, or examine bigger lapses in accessibility, like hearing loss.

High frequency or sensorineural hearing loss can be solved with hearing aids or cochlear implants, but both solutions can be expensive and ineffective. Design for 90’s frequency tuner is an accessible alternative.

The tuner is the organization’s longest-running and most-developed project. It transforms undetectable frequencies into a visual cue or vibration, helping people who could miss the beep of their smoke detector, the sound of a tornado alarm or even the ding when the microwave finishes.

The team is still in talks to determine what form the output should take, but they’ve succeeded in identifying the frequency of a microwave beep. Now, they’re working on building the code for a robust database of sounds.

“[The tuner] has the potential to be used for a lot of things,” said Redman. “The most important applications obviously are the things that are emergency signals.”

Initially, the idea for the frequency tuner came from a biomedical engineering capstone that didn’t make headway. When offered the opportunity to pick up the project, Design for 90 didn’t hesitate. Mining for old capstones with a humanitarian focus is just one way the group finds projects.

They’ve partnered with the Heinzerling Foundation, Ohio State’s Humanitarian Engineering Scholars program and more to find and serve that 90 percent. They also encourage members to pursue what they’re passionate about. A new project this semester aims to help homeless people move their belongings around. The organization is also exploring a partnership with a nearby dorm that houses young adults and students with disabilities.

More than anything, the obstacle Design for 90 faces is member availability. Demanding schedules make it difficult to coordinate when members can meet, but the passion for these projects runs deep, and it shows. Established in 2015, Design for 90 has already received the College of Engineering’s Outstanding Community or University Service Award for two straight years.

Now in his third year of developing the frequency tuner, Redman has found the organization invaluable to his education. “You do [an assignment] and it might not work at all, but that’s what you submit,” he said. “Here, if you get to the end and it doesn’t work, you have to go back to some point in the middle and keep going until you get the solution.”

by Brianna Long, College of Engineering student communications assistant

Categories: OutreachStudents