October 27, 2015

A Drexel undergraduate student team recently won first place at a Philadelphia hackathon to build accessible and wearable technology solutions. 

On October 23-25, several teams representing universities and local tech firms competed at evoHaX Special Edition (SE), a hackathon focused on building wearable technologies that are accessible, targeting a broader range of disabilities through collaboration between professional developers, students, therapists, and people with disabilities. Subject experts included the deaf, blind, people with vision impairment, people with cognitive disabilities, senior citizens, doctors, therapists, and nurses.

The top prize went to the Drexel Dragons, a multidisciplinary team of Drexel undergraduates who constructed a cantilevered canopy to make the use of eye-tracking technology more functional in outdoor settings. Team members included Whitaker undergraduate scholar Emily Ballantyne (BS Mechanical Engineering '17); Karishma Changlani (BS Computer Science '18); Anna Lu (BS Biomedical Engineering '17); Brian Glassman (BS Mechanical Engineering '17) and Eric Nachitgall (BS/MS Electrical Engineering '17).

More coverage EvoHax and winning projects at Philly Voice and adafruit.