Purdue industrial design medical design hackathon to take place Sept. 22-23

Last year at the Design Good Now workshop, students from five participating universities developed 22 product solutions in less than 24 hours. (File photo provided by TJ Kim) Download image

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — More than 2,000 college students from 30 universities around the world will collaborate on a medical design hackathon as part of the Sept. 22-23 Design Good Now conference.

Design Good Now is a global design initiative developed at Purdue to take on real world challenges. It brings together universities, communities and industries from around the world in a two-day design collaborative workshop focused on designing adaptive and assistive devices for people with disabilities. The event is organized by Purdue Industrial Design in partnership with the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Purdue’s Dawn or Doom Conference.

“We are so excited about the event since we will have students participating from around the world, all at the same day and time but in different locations,” said TJ Kim, associate professor of industrial design. “At Purdue, we are anticipating more than 100 students participating from different disciplines, working together as teams on every aspect of product design, from engineering to business.”

Purdue participants will work at Matchbox Coworking Studio, 17 S. 6th St., Lafayette, from 6 p.m. on Sept. 22 to 6 p.m. Sept. 23.

An exhibition highlighting the Design Good Now conference will be on display in the Patti and Rusty Rueff Galleries in Pao Hall, Monday (Sept. 18) through Oct. 6. The gallery show will describe the design process and showcase work done from last year’s workshop.

The approach focuses on three pillars:

* Design thinking, which examines the causes, symptoms and challenges of disability and then brainstorming solutions.

* Design making focuses on creating mockups using CAD generation or 3D printing.

* Design innovating, explores the implementation of the proposed solutions.

Last year, 22 product solutions were developed in less than 24 hours with five universities.

More information is available at designgoodnow.com and on Facebook at the user name Design Good Now.

Purdue industrial design is a part of the Department of Art and Design within the Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts.

Writer: Kelsey Schnieders, kschnied@purdue.edu

Source: TJ Kim, kim1886@purdue.edu