More than 2,000 students from 30 universities around the world will collaborate during a medical design hackathon as part of the Sept. 22-23 Design Good Now conference at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.
The global design initiative, developed at Purdue to take on real world challenges, will bring together universities, communities and industries in the collaborative workshop focused on designing adaptive and assistive devices for people with disabilities. The event is organized by Purdue Industrial Design in partnership with the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Purdue’s Dawn or Doom Conference.
“We’re so excited about the event since we will have students participating from around the world, all at the same day and time but in different locations,” says TJ Kim, IDSA, associate professor of industrial design. “At Purdue, we are anticipating more than 100 students participating from different disciplines, working together as teams on every aspect of product design from engineering to business.”
Purdue participants will work at Matchbox Coworking Studio from 6 pm on Sept. 22 to 6 pm on Sept. 23. An exhibition highlighting the Design Good Now conference will be on display in the Rueff Galleries from Sept. 18 to Oct. 6. The approach focuses on three pillars:
- Design thinking, which examines the causes, symptoms and challenges of disability and then brainstorming solutions.
- Design making, focusing on creating mockups using CAD generation or 3D printing.
- Design innovating, exploring the implementation of the proposed solutions.
Last year, 22 product solutions were developed in 24 hours by five universities.