Supporting a uK SucceSS Story: The impacT of - Research Councils ...

Design for disabled athletes
Students at Imperial College London are being challenged to
design and build new types of sporting equipment for people
with disabilities in the lead up to the London 2012 Paralympics, in
an initiative funded by Rio Tinto. The aim of the Rio Tinto Sports
Innovation Challenge is to harness the creativity of Imperial’s
students in order to make sports more accessible to people with
disabilities and to improve the sporting and training equipment
available to them. For example, third year undergraduates in the
Department of Bioengineering are aiming to develop technology
for people with arm disabilities that they hope could enable
such people to take part in competitive rowing for the first time.
As part of their project, teams from the departments of Civil
and Environmental Engineering, Bioengineering, Mechanical
Engineering and Electrical and Electronic Engineering will be
encouraged to interact with one another, sharing their ideas and
knowledge, and develop leadership and team skills. They will be
joined by postgraduates studying for the MSc in Innovation Design
Engineering, which is run jointly between Imperial and the Royal
College of Art. The students will develop prototype technologies
and manage their design project, writing reports, creating
presentations and making log books. They will also have the
opportunity to take part in summer projects and enter a ‘Dragon’s
Den’ style competition, where their inventions will be judged by a
panel of experts, with financial incentives for winning teams.
“The aim of the Rio Tinto Sports Innovation Challenge
is to harness the creativity of Imperial’s students in
order to make sports more accessible to people
with disabilities.”
SECTION THREE : DESIGN 43