California Lutheran University students are semifinalists for an annual design contest to bring innovative products for disabled individuals to market. The Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Society of North America is hosting its 2012 international competition in Baltimore June 28. Graduate students in CLU’s deaf and hard-of-hearing program designed a small clip, known as the Clu Clip, that can be attached to a cane and used to prevent it from falling from a desk or table when not in use. Students Jane Hankins and Jennifer Black will represent Cal Lutheran at the conference, where the university will compete against nine other contenders for an opportunity to make their product commercially available. “The competition is pretty steep,” Hankins said. Some of the other entries include a semi-automatic feeding device for wheelchair users and a modified medicine bottle opener. Five finalists will be announced at the conference. The winner will receive $500 and an opportunity for one member to spend three weeks working with staff at the Center for the Translation of Rehabilitation Engineering Advances and Technology in New Hampshire to ready the product for the market place. Students from schools for deaf and hard of hearing, including the Virginia Department of the Blind and Visually Impaired, tested the clip and gave it rave reviews. “The O&M (Orientation and Mobility) people already want to know if you are selling them,” the Virginia Department’s Carol Cornett said on the Clu Clip website. “Everyone thinks it is a great idea.”
