Schools Get Inventive

Check out the description of a real world situation below, shared by the American Society of Engineering Education’s publication “Prism” October 2020 issue. What would you design to help this situation? Would you improve the current technologies or invent a whole new one?

“After welcoming students back to campus this fall, many universities have become test beds for new technologies to detect and contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. Some could end up in use nationwide. Rochester Institute of Technology, for example, is one of several schools using a system developed at Syracuse University to test wastewater from residence halls several times a week for genetic traces of the virus. If COVID-19 is detected, students from that dorm are tested and any positive cases isolated. Several schools have developed tracking apps. The University of Arizona’s Covid Watch uses Bluetooth technology to anonymously track students’ movements and send notifications to anyone who comes within close range of a positive case, the New York Times reports. The Universities of Alabama and Virginia are piloting a similar app, while MIT Media Lab’s PathCheck is undergoing trials at Vassar College, Southern Methodist University, and Texas Christian University. Some campuses also are piloting speedier COVID-19 tests, such as the saliva test created at the University of Illinois that can spit out results within five hours. Meanwhile, Boston University biomedical engineering Ph.D. student Jessie Song is addressing the shortage of coronavirus test swabs by 3.D printing several prototypes. Once an optimal design is ready, it will undergo a clinical trial at Boston Medical Center.”