{"id":2545,"date":"2010-12-22T16:33:10","date_gmt":"2010-12-22T21:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=2545"},"modified":"2010-12-22T16:34:18","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T21:34:18","slug":"student-engineering-works-become-products-for-disabled-vets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=2545","title":{"rendered":"Student Engineering Works Become Products for Disabled Vets"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2547\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2547\" style=\"width: 267px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/WheelchairsFlags_VAgov.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2547\" title=\"WheelchairsFlags_VAgov\" src=\"http:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/WheelchairsFlags_VAgov.jpg\" alt=\"Wheelchairs with flags (Washington DC VA Medical Center)\" width=\"267\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/WheelchairsFlags_VAgov.jpg 267w, https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/WheelchairsFlags_VAgov-150x112.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 267px) 100vw, 267px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2547\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Washington DC VA Medical Center)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Last year, four <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buffalo.edu\/news\/12118\">University at Buffalo<\/a> (UB) computer engineering undergraduates developed a software program to enable quadriplegics and other people with limited mobility to use computers productively with one button. The students are now working with a federal government contractor to tailor the software for disabled veterans, and have formed a company to distribute the software further.<\/p>\n<p>Austin Miller, Robert Rodenhaus, Leonard Story Jr., and Matthew Taylor, computer engineering classmates, developed last spring as a class project a software program called OmniSwitch, for people with limited mobility to type letters, surf the web, listen to music and play computer games with a single button or switch. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.appliedsciencesgroup.com\/\">Applied Sciences Group<\/a> (ASG), also in Buffalo, New York is adapting OmniSwitch for disabled veterans at the Spinal Cord Injury center at the James A. Haley Veterans&#8217; Hospital in Tampa, Fla. ASG has a $270,000 contract from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to develop an augmented communications network for spinal cord injury veterans at the Tampa center.<\/p>\n<p>In place of a mouse and keyboard, OmniSwitch allows users to control a computer with a single switch that plugs into a computer&#8217;s USB port. The switch can take the shape of a large button, a sip and puff tube that detects air flow, or an eye gaze device that detects a person&#8217;s blink. These access devices accommodate disabled people&#8217;s capabilities, allowing them to use computers like full-functioning individuals.<\/p>\n<p>The four students started their own company, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eclectisystems.com\/\">EclectiSystems Inc.<\/a> in nearby Elma, New York, to distribute OmniSwitch. Taylor, the company CEO, Rodenhaus, and Story graduated from UB last spring. Miller is a senior.<\/p>\n<p>ASG has also engaged a second team of UB students, in this case two master&#8217;s candidates in computer science, to build a speech-generation system for nonverbal veterans to control computers and peripheral devices, as well as communicate with others.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, four University at Buffalo (UB) computer engineering undergraduates developed a software program to enable quadriplegics and other people with limited mobility to use computers productively with one button. The students are now working with a federal government contractor to tailor the software for disabled veterans, and have formed a company to distribute the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[109,86,74,26],"class_list":["post-2545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-products","tag-computer-science","tag-engineering","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2545"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2550,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545\/revisions\/2550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}