Rowan Engineering Student Gets, Gives a ?Helping Hand?
Rowan Engineering Student Gets, Gives a ?Helping Hand?
March 17, 2005
Caitlin Terry is used to giving a helping hand.
Recently she received one.
The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) awarded the Rowan University Civil Engineering senior and Vineland resident a $14,395 grant to pursue the development of a creation she calls The Helping Hand.
The Helping Hand, which Terry conceived of and was instrumental in creating in engineering classes and on her own time during the past couple of years, is a device to assist people with hand problems write more easily. A mouse-like device, The Helping Hand holds a pen that the user can guide using forearm and shoulder movement.
Caitlin?s grandfather, Robert Terry, a Haddon Heights resident who has nerve damage that affects his writing, inspired her creation, which is made of a polymer. The younger Terry
worked on the project with engineering students Michele D?Alessandro, originally of Sea Girt and now of Henderson, NV; Ronald Mills, Upper Deerfield; and Nadyali Soto, originally of Vineland and now of Orlando, FL, all 2004 graduates, and senior business student Melissa Brewer, Vineland, with assistance from faculty in the College of Engineering and College of Business.
The NCIIA grant will help Terry complete her work. She filed in March for a provisional patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, with which she plans to register the product name as well. By May, with the help of Mills and Brewer, she hopes to produce 50 to 100 Helping Hands for testing by occupational therapists and others. From there, she will refine the device, if need be, based on test results. Ultimately she hopes to obtain a licensing agreement with a medical manufacturing and distribution company.
At the beginning of the project, the students researched hand and wrist mobility issues, studied medical websites, spoke with people with hand injuries, sketched out ideas and conducted market research. They went on to undertake several phases of development -- including making a model out of children?s clay -- before finally deciding on an ambidextrous stingray-shaped holding device that glides on ball bearings that provide a fluid motion. They then produced a polymer prototype of the device.
Drs. Hong Zhang and Anthony Marchese, Mechanical Engineering professors, and Dr. Mark Weaver, director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Rowan, have advised the students on the development of The Helping Hand. The College of Engineering?s Venture Capital Fund provided the students with up to $2,500 to undertake the project. Terry attended Weaver?s Venture Development class to obtain more information about marketing the product. Terry also attended two entrepreneurial bootcamps the CIE recently sponsored on campus for students, faculty and area residents, inventors and business people.
Terry, who already has lined up a full-time job with the New Jersey Department of Transportation upon graduation, is pleased about the latest step with The Helping Hand. "I'm so excited we got the grant to continue working on it,? she said. ?It's been a lot of hard work for everyone so far, and I am glad we now have the money to see it through to completion."
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Recently she received one.
The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) awarded the Rowan University Civil Engineering senior and Vineland resident a $14,395 grant to pursue the development of a creation she calls The Helping Hand.
The Helping Hand, which Terry conceived of and was instrumental in creating in engineering classes and on her own time during the past couple of years, is a device to assist people with hand problems write more easily. A mouse-like device, The Helping Hand holds a pen that the user can guide using forearm and shoulder movement.
Caitlin?s grandfather, Robert Terry, a Haddon Heights resident who has nerve damage that affects his writing, inspired her creation, which is made of a polymer. The younger Terry
worked on the project with engineering students Michele D?Alessandro, originally of Sea Girt and now of Henderson, NV; Ronald Mills, Upper Deerfield; and Nadyali Soto, originally of Vineland and now of Orlando, FL, all 2004 graduates, and senior business student Melissa Brewer, Vineland, with assistance from faculty in the College of Engineering and College of Business.
The NCIIA grant will help Terry complete her work. She filed in March for a provisional patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, with which she plans to register the product name as well. By May, with the help of Mills and Brewer, she hopes to produce 50 to 100 Helping Hands for testing by occupational therapists and others. From there, she will refine the device, if need be, based on test results. Ultimately she hopes to obtain a licensing agreement with a medical manufacturing and distribution company.
At the beginning of the project, the students researched hand and wrist mobility issues, studied medical websites, spoke with people with hand injuries, sketched out ideas and conducted market research. They went on to undertake several phases of development -- including making a model out of children?s clay -- before finally deciding on an ambidextrous stingray-shaped holding device that glides on ball bearings that provide a fluid motion. They then produced a polymer prototype of the device.
Drs. Hong Zhang and Anthony Marchese, Mechanical Engineering professors, and Dr. Mark Weaver, director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Rowan, have advised the students on the development of The Helping Hand. The College of Engineering?s Venture Capital Fund provided the students with up to $2,500 to undertake the project. Terry attended Weaver?s Venture Development class to obtain more information about marketing the product. Terry also attended two entrepreneurial bootcamps the CIE recently sponsored on campus for students, faculty and area residents, inventors and business people.
Terry, who already has lined up a full-time job with the New Jersey Department of Transportation upon graduation, is pleased about the latest step with The Helping Hand. "I'm so excited we got the grant to continue working on it,? she said. ?It's been a lot of hard work for everyone so far, and I am glad we now have the money to see it through to completion."
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