The IEEE UniMelb Student Branch is proud to announce the inaugural Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program at The University of Melbourne. This program has assembled a group of 10 students passionate about community issues to put their engineering and design skills to use.

As part of this program, the team is developing the “Rainbow Box”, a low-cost multi-sensory toy for children with autism.

On completion of the program, all design files for the Rainbow Box will be made available under an open-source license at https://github.com/ieeeunimelb/epics so that others may build and expand upon our work.

For more information, contact the program co-ordinator Emerson Keenan at e.keenan [at] ieee [dot] org.

Media:

Team Members:

Nina Averill – Bachelor of Science (Computing and Software Systems)

William Campbell – Master of Engineering (Mechatronics)

Samantha Davies – Bachelor of Science (Electrical Systems)

William Garvin – Bachelor of Environments (Architecture)

Grace Johnson – Master of Engineering (Software)

Jing Mu – Master of Engineering (Mechatronics)

Yudi Ren – Master of Engineering (Mechatronics)

Jack Swann – Bachelor of Biomedicine (Bioengineering Systems)

Herman Wahidin – Master of Information Systems

Michael Warton – Master of Engineering (Electrical)

Special thanks

University of Melbourne Student Engagement Grants Program for awarding us the Peter McPhee Student Award without which this program would not have been possible

Amaze for their guidance in building awareness and understanding of autism

Melissa Merryweather from Marnebek School Cranbourne for providing advice on multi-sensory learning technology

Melbourne School of Engineering Laboratory Team for organising the project laboratory and test equipment

University of Melbourne 3D Printing Innovation Centre and FabLab for helping prototype our mechanical designs