About 16 p.c of the worldwide inhabitants—greater than 1 billion individuals—dwell with some type of incapacity, based on the World Well being Group. Lots 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 Worldwide Science and Engineering Honest (ISEF), held in Could in Phoenix. Their initiatives earned them this yr’s IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship awards.
IEEE President Mary Ellen Randall introduced the awards at a ceremony held through the honest. In addition they obtained an IEEE President’s coin, which college students mentioned was a spotlight of their expertise.
Hollie Tang received 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 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 received complimentary IEEE scholar memberships.
Established by the IEEE Basis and administered by IEEE Instructional Actions, the Presidents’ Scholarship acknowledges highschool college students who reveal an distinctive grasp of electrical engineering, laptop science, or one other IEEE subject of curiosity.
Controlling actions with a tongue
Holly Tang received the 2026 IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship of US $10,000 for her Tonguage undertaking, which is a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface.Lynn Bowlby
Tang, a sophomore at Wilson Excessive College in Hacienda Heights, Calif., secured the highest prize for her Tonguage undertaking: a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface. Utilizing tongue actions and a typical 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 particular person’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 supposed person, disregarding anybody else who strikes into the digital camera’s body.
That may be a vital security measure for a wheelchair-navigation utility, Tang says.
Accessibility was central to Tang’s mission. She constructed the system to run on comparatively inexpensive, available laptop computer cameras quite than extra pricey specialised {hardware}.
“Mobility situations don’t discriminate,” she says. “They will 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 means of purposes similar to wheelchair navigation, robotic arm management, and gaming, she says.
“We’re so targeted on attempting to provide individuals autonomy over simply primary human duties that we regularly omit issues like gaming,” she says. “They deserve the liberty to play video games and revel in leisure as effectively.”
Tang, who plans to pursue biomedical engineering, says a go to to a rehabilitation middle solidified her objective.
“Together with empathy in your technological answer is so vital,” she says. “Empathy is tough to show in a classroom, however it may be realized by means of expertise, and thru really assembly individuals whose lives your work may change.”
Thoughts-controlled exoskeleton
Sidhu, a junior at Bethpage Excessive College, 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 neighborhood middle that lacked elevators. He noticed people with mobility points battle to navigate the three flights of stairs.
NeuroGaitoperates 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 supposed actions and sends instructions to a 3D-printed exoskeleton. Fairly than inflexible motors, the go well with depends on pneumatic synthetic muscle tissue that Sidhu designed to imitate human anatomy.
“The pneumatic synthetic muscle in itself is so compliant that it’s in a position to regulate to the constraints of the human physique,” he says.
The technical specs are hanging: The CNN achieves a 99.9 p.c accuracy in detecting an individual’s supposed motion, whereas the total system—from the mind’s sign to bodily motion—operates at 95.2 p.c accuracy, based on the outcomes from 500 trials Sidhu performed.
Maybe most impressively, Sidhu constructed the complete system for about $276, lower than 1 p.c of the $40,000 to $100,000 price ticket of business exoskeletons, based on a 2025 income report from Roots Evaluation.
He says he hopes to carry NeuroGaitto the neighborhood middle the place the thought for the undertaking started.
He attributes his success to staying present with analysis from establishments and organizations similar 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 Excessive College, in California, took third place for Math Into Movement: Robotic Hexapod for Hazardous Environments. The six-legged robotic is designed to traverse terrain too unstable for people or standard 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 similar toCuriosity and Perseverancebattle on uneven surfaces, main him to hypothesize {that a} hexapod design can be higher for rugged floor.
Because the undertaking progressed, the humanitarian purposes for his robotic grew to become 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, by which three legs keep grounded whereas the opposite three transfer, makes it effectively fitted to navigating in collapsed buildings to find survivors or to hold delicate provides similar to insulin in battle zones.
The present model strikes utilizing three mathematical methods. 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 course into directions that every leg can comply with, whatever the means a leg occurs to be going through.
Hung taught himself how one can design a printed circuit board. He additionally taught himself 3D modeling, coding, and soldering. Determining the difficult 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 vital circuit board failure in his third model almost ended the undertaking, he says.
“There was a extremely robust second of ‘Ought to I simply surrender?’” 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 lounge flooring.
He advises aspiring engineers that “should you discover the suitable undertaking 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 reveal, the way forward for engineering goes far past technical ingenuity. A lot is rooted in empathy and a dedication to human welfare.
By way of initiatives such because the IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship, the IEEE Basis showcases and nurtures brilliant minds poised to form the following period of assistive know-how and robotics.
For Tang, Sidhu, and Hung, the ISEF stage is only the start. They will look ahead to impactful careers devoted to advancing know-how for the good thing about humanity.
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