Cal Lutheran University students are semifinalists for a design contest at the Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Society of North America 2012 Annual Conference. The international competition is aimed at moving innovative products for disabled individuals to market. The graduate students in CLU’s deaf and hard-of-hearing program designed a small clip that can be attached to a cane and used to hold it next to a desk or table, preventing it from falling when not in use. Students from the Alaska State School for Deaf and Hard of Hearing, South Carolina Commission for the Blind, and Virginia Department of the Blind and Visually Impaired tested the clip and gave it rave reviews. Two Valley students wil represent Cal Lutheran at the conference in Baltimore at the end of them month. The university will compete against nine other contenders for an opportunity to make their product commercially avaialable. Five finalists will be announced at the conference. The team with the product deemed most likely to become commercially available 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 move it toward the marketplace. Angela Melero
