Two undergraduate student teams from the Department of Biomedical Engineering within the College of Engineering placed during the national Medical Device Make-A-Thon (MDM) competition. The event was Feb. 28 through March 2 at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. Twenty-seven teams from across the country participated in the competition, including teams from the University of Illinois and the University of Texas at Austin.
The design competition, which ran from Friday evening to Sunday morning, tasked teams with developing innovative solutions in the field of physical rehabilitation, focusing on areas such as prosthetics, orthopedics, and physical therapy. Teams were given the prompt at 8 p.m. on Friday and had until 3:30 p.m. on Saturday to present their initial design ideas.
The ShockCure Engineers team, consisting of Stephanie Brock, Sophiya Dahal, Caitlyn Joseph and Taylor Spinelli, presented a solution, “ElectroStride,” for asymmetrical pressure distribution in athletes. The team advanced to the second round of the competition and ultimately secured fifth place. The WuShock team, consisting of Benjamin Anderson, Cynthia Chidziwo, Jamie Claeys, Cleopatra Nyevera and Abby Otten, presented a device, “Internal Hypermobility Splint,” for Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). Their team placed in the top 12.