About 16 % of the worldwide inhabitants—greater than 1 billion individuals—reside with some type of incapacity, in response to the World Health Organization. Most of the disabilities have an effect on independence and mobility.
Three highschool college students engaged on innovations to assist individuals 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 Might in Phoenix. Their tasks earned them this yr’s IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship awards.
IEEE President Mary Ellen Randall offered the awards at a ceremony held through the honest. In addition they acquired 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 research and features a complimentary IEEE pupil membership.
Partap Sidhu, the second-place winner, acquired a $600 scholarship for his mind-controlled lower-limb exoskeleton. Third-place winner Calvin Shang Hung acquired a $400 scholarship for his rough-terrain robotic. Sidhu and Hung additionally bought complimentary IEEE pupil memberships.
Established by the IEEE Foundation and administered by IEEE Educational Activities, the Presidents’ Scholarship acknowledges highschool college students who exhibit an distinctive grasp of electrical engineering, laptop 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 challenge, 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 challenge: a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface. Utilizing tongue actions and an ordinary digital camera, 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 person’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 function for error prevention that verifies instructions are coming from the meant person, disregarding anybody else who strikes into the digital camera’s body.
That may be a important security measure for a wheelchair-navigation software, Tang says.
Accessibility was central to Tang’s mission. She constructed the system to run on comparatively inexpensive, available laptop computer cameras moderately than extra expensive specialised {hardware}.
“Mobility situations don’t discriminate,” she says. “They’ll have an effect on anybody of any revenue, 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 by way of purposes equivalent to wheelchair navigation, robotic arm management, and gaming, she says.
“We’re so centered on making an attempt to offer individuals autonomy over simply primary human duties that we frequently omit issues like gaming,” she says. “They deserve the liberty to play video games and revel 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 essential,” she says. “Empathy is tough to show in a classroom, however it may be realized by way of expertise, and thru really assembly individuals whose lives your work would possibly 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. Reasonably 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 modify 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 total system—from the mind’s sign to bodily motion—operates at 95.2 % accuracy, in response to the outcomes from 500 trials Sidhu carried out.
Maybe most impressively, Sidhu constructed the whole system for about $276, lower than 1 % of the $40,000 to $100,000 price ticket of business exoskeletons, in response to a 2025 revenue report from Roots Evaluation.
He says he hopes to carry NeuroGait to the group heart the place the concept for the challenge started.
He attributes his success to staying present with analysis from establishments and organizations equivalent to Boston Dynamics and MIT.
“To achieve success in analysis,” he says, “you need to know what’s being accomplished 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 standard robotic methods.
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 equivalent to Curiosity and Perseverance battle on uneven surfaces, main him to hypothesize {that a} hexapod design could be higher for rugged floor.
Because the challenge progressed, the humanitarian purposes for his robotic turned clearer, he says. Watching information stories 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, during which three legs keep grounded whereas the opposite three transfer, makes it nicely fitted to navigating in collapsed buildings to find survivors or to hold delicate provides equivalent to 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 succeed in 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 comply with, whatever the manner a leg occurs to be dealing with.
Hung taught himself tips on how to design a printed circuit board. He additionally taught himself 3D modeling, coding, and soldering. Determining the difficult mathematical transformations to coordinate legs dealing with totally different instructions proved to be the hardest hurdle, he says.
After seven months of improvement and trial and error, a important circuit board failure in his third model almost ended the challenge, he says.
“There was a extremely sturdy second of ‘Ought to I simply quit?’” he remembers.
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 front room ground.
He advises aspiring engineers that “for those who discover the correct challenge and it actually turns into your ardour, designing it nearly begins to really feel like enjoyable, and that’s what carries you thru.”
Because the three younger innovators exhibit, the way forward for engineering goes far past technical ingenuity. A lot is rooted in empathy and a dedication to human welfare.
By means of initiatives such because the IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship, the IEEE Foundation showcases and nurtures vivid 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 sit up for impactful careers devoted to advancing know-how for the good thing about humanity.
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