The 4th Biomedical Engineering Innovation Competition "Love．Innovate for Happy Ageing" (第四屆「愛．創耆樂」) ended successfully on 2 December on PolyU campus
Opening Speech by Dr Hin-chung Lau, Senior Teaching Fellow of PolyU BME
Opening Speech by Ms Patricia Lau, CEO of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council Limited
Highlights of the Design Competition
Highlights of the Challenge Competition
The 4th Biomedical Engineering Innovation Competition "Love．Innovate for Happy Ageing" (第四屆「愛．創耆樂」) ended successfully on 2 December on The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) campus. Over 366 students formed 67 teams to participate in the competition.
Co-organised by PolyU Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council, "Love．Innovate for Happy Ageing" aims to nurture the younger generation to develop innovative technologies and solutions to meet the emerging needs of the society due to the aging population in Hong Kong. It upholds the spirit of interdisciplinary learning through STEM. Students used engineering design thinking to understand the advantages and disadvantages of existing assistive technologies, pay attention to the needs of end users, and suggest a more appropriate product design. The competition also involves the participation of the elders during the innovation process, in order to achieve harmony between the elderly and the youth.
The competition had two categories — Challenge Competition and Design Competition. The Challenge Competition was an intergenerational robotic car competition. Each team consisted of two to eight primary or secondary school students, one teacher and one elder who is over 60 years old. Each team needed to use Micro:bit or LEGO to build three robotic cars to target the balloons on the cars of the opponent teams, while saving their own balloons at the same time. One of the cars must be controlled by the elder.
The Design Competition requires participants to design and develop a gerontechnology product aiming to help the elders prevent or alleviate the symptoms of Dementia. Each team consisted of two to eight primary school, secondary school or higher education institution students and one to two teachers/coaches. Before building the final prototype to present their product ideas, they must first participate in three activities, including Event 1: Participating the online co-create platform, Action Hub to understand the living difficulties and mental health condition of the Hong Kong elders who live alone or in double aging families, Event 2: Design Thinking & Entrepreneurship Sharing Workshop to understand the design of different existing gerontechnology products and Event 3: Sharing sessions with the healthcare professionals to collect feedback from healthcare professionals and/or elders to optimize their product ideas.
The teams introduced their products through their design inspirations, ideas and solutions to address the needs of the elders to prevent or alleviate the symptoms of Dementia. Judges included engineers, medical professionals and over 180 elderly users. The winning teams were selected based on these criteria — innovation, STEM application, usability and potential for improvement.
Scholarships were also awarded to teams whose products were considered suitable for further research and development. Dr Hin-chung LAU, Senior Teaching Fellow of PolyU BME, organised the competition for the fourth year, expected the scholarship would encourage the students to continue to design products using STEM knowledge and skills.
