EPICS Team Wins Student Paper Award at Regional Conference

A team of three University of Texas at Dallas students designed a motorized art table for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities that received a second-place honor from the American Society for Engineering Education Gulf Southwest Region.

The team designed the table through UTDesign EPICS, a service-learning program in which undergraduate students work on teams to solve problems for nonprofit organizations. The students, Jiyah Starks, an electrical engineering senior, Yuxin Jiao, a mechanical engineering senior, and Danyal Syed, a mechanical engineering junior, won second place in the student beset paper competition. Their project for My Possibilities, a Plano nonprofit organization, was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the students aim to finish the art table in the fall.

The theme for the 2020 ASEE Conference was “Engineering Engineering Education (E3): Innovations in the Classroom and Beyond.” The student paper focused on “The Engineering Design process for the EPICS’ Motorized Art Table for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities,” in partnership with My Possibilities. The University of Texas at Dallas students won second place out of 33 entries to the conference.

All group photos taken prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. For current COVID-19 campus updates, visit utdallas.edu/COVID.