While students from Bioengineering dominated the top two teams at the second annual HealthHack 2016 organized by the UC San Diego chapter of Engineering World Health, a Computer Science and Engineering sophomore and his team mates took the third spot. Well over 100 students, mostly undergraduates, took part in the hackathon aimed at designing a solution to "diagnose, limit, prevent or treat a mental condition and its associated problems." Computer Science major Gustavo Umbelino (far right), Class of '18, and his colleagues from Math (Rodolfo Flores) and Bioengineering (Alfredo Lucas) focused their hacking effort on ADHD, and specifically for students in the classroom. The prevalence of ADHD is particularly elevated among students from lower-income neighborhoods. The third-place team developed a Stimulating Pen, which sends routine prompts to the user in the form of visual cues or haptic feedback (i.e., vibration). According to the Jacobs School of Engineering blog, "the device also has a component for anxiety relief that allows the user to continuously press the button on the pen's top, similarly to clicking a pen non-stop." In place of a working prototype, teams were required to submit a written proposal describing the need that the pen would fulfill, an explanation of how it would work, a plan for bringing the project to fruition, and any roadblocks the team might face in creating the device.
Mar 7, 2016