About 16 % of the worldwide inhabitants—greater than 1 billion folks—stay with some type of incapacity, in line with 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 folks with disabilities restore motion, translate ideas, and navigate tough terrain had their work showcased at Regeneron’s Worldwide Science and Engineering Truthful (ISEF), held in Might 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 in the course of the truthful. In addition they obtained an IEEE President’s coin, which college students stated 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 examine and features a complimentary IEEE scholar membership.
Partap Sidhu, 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. Sidhu and Hung additionally received complimentary IEEE scholar memberships.
Established by the IEEE Basis and administered by IEEE Academic Actions, the Presidents’ Scholarship acknowledges highschool college students who exhibit an distinctive grasp {of electrical} engineering, pc 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 challenge, which is a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface.Lynn Bowlby
Tang, a sophomore at Wilson Excessive Faculty in Hacienda Heights, Calif., secured the highest prize for her Tonguage challenge: a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface. Utilizing tongue actions and a normal 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 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 could be a important 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 moderately than extra expensive specialised {hardware}.
“Mobility situations don’t discriminate,” she says. “They’ll have an effect on anybody of any earnings, 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 via functions similar to wheelchair navigation, robotic arm management, and gaming, she says.
“We’re so targeted on attempting to present folks autonomy over simply primary human duties that we frequently omit issues like gaming,” she says. “They deserve the liberty to play video games and luxuriate in leisure as properly.”
Tang, who plans to pursue biomedical engineering, says a go to to a rehabilitation middle solidified her objective.
“Together with empathy in your technological resolution is so necessary,” she says. “Empathy is tough to show in a classroom, however it may be discovered via expertise, and thru really assembly folks whose lives your work would possibly change.”
Thoughts-controlled exoskeleton
Sidhu, a junior at Bethpage Excessive Faculty, 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 middle 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. Relatively than inflexible motors, the swimsuit depends on pneumatic synthetic muscle tissues that Sidhu designed to imitate human anatomy.
“The pneumatic synthetic 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 putting: The CNN achieves a 99.9 % accuracy in detecting an individual’s meant motion, whereas the complete system—from the mind’s sign to bodily motion—operates at 95.2 % accuracy, in line with the outcomes from 500 trials Sidhu carried out.
Maybe most impressively, Sidhu constructed the complete system for about $276, lower than 1 % of the $40,000 to $100,000 price ticket of business exoskeletons, in line with a 2025 income report from Roots Evaluation.
He says he hopes to carry NeuroGait to the group middle the place the concept for the challenge 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, “it’s important to know what’s being accomplished proper now.”
A spider-inspired robotic
Hung, a sophomore at El Cerrito Excessive Faculty, 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 typical robotic programs.
With solely weeks earlier than the science truthful 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 to Curiosity and Perseverance battle on uneven surfaces, main him to hypothesize {that a} hexapod design can be higher for rugged floor.
Because the challenge progressed, the humanitarian functions for his robotic turned 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, during which three legs keep grounded whereas the opposite three transfer, makes it properly suited 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 strategies. 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 path into directions that every leg can comply with, whatever the approach a leg occurs to be going through.
Hung taught himself 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 improvement and trial and error, a important circuit board failure in his third model almost ended the challenge, 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 “in the event you discover the precise challenge and it actually turns into your ardour, designing it virtually 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.
Via 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’ll sit up for impactful careers devoted to advancing know-how for the advantage of humanity.
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