Vancouver, Canada—May 13, 2010—A team from UBC Engineering—students Graeham Douglas, Enrico Guld, Stephen Herbrik, Mark Hewett, Colin Keightley, Fraser McDonald and Zach Ross, supervised by Mechanical Engineering Professors Mike Van der Loos and Antony Hodgson and Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Philippe Kruchten—has won ALSBC’s 2010 Innovation Award for their Neck Brace and Eye Gaze project and accompanying $1000 prize.

From left: Steve Whiteside, President ALS Society of BC; Graeham Douglas, UBC Engineering APSC 496 Student; Graham Wickham, Chairperson ALS Society of BC Design Committee.

The Innovation Award, one of the three Dr. Jim McEwen Excellence in Engineering Design 2010 Awards, was established by the ALS Society of British Columbia to encourage and recognize innovation in technology to substantially improve the quality of life of people living with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

Their project, a powered head-support system for people with late-stage ALS, allows for comfortable support of the head and a return of head motion function to people who experience extreme weakness of the neck muscles. There is currently no effective device on the market that provides this for people living with ALS. This year’s innovation featured the use of an eye-gaze tracker to control the motions of the system. The student team was generously supported by Mirametrix Research, Inc., a start-up from UBC, through the loan of the eye-gaze tracking equipment.

Team-member, Mechanical Engineering student Graeham Douglas, along with commerce student Andrei Pop, submitted a business plan based on the ALSBC Neck Brace/Eye Gaze Project to the annual Enterprize Canada competition. They placed third of ten teams in the Western Canada Regional Competition and reached the top six in the National Semi-Final round of 42 teams.

“It’s fantastic to see the efforts of all the engineering students recognized by ALSBC and its panel,” says Van der Loos. “It is also gratifying that the new APSC 496 design course at UBC, a component newly introduced by the Canada Design Chair this past year, created such a successful entry to this award in its first year.”

Contact:

ErinRose Handy
Communications Manager
Faculty of Applied Science
The University of British Columbia
Tel: 604.822.1524
E-mail: erinrose.handy@ubc.ca