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Mechanical Engineering Seniors Place Third in CREATE

POSTED ON: April 9, 2024

CREATE

Irene (Won) Choi ME'24 and Michelle Meiner ME'24 with Professor Melody Baglione

Albert Nerken School of Engineering seniors Irene (Won) Choi, Jakey Kluger, Michelle Meiner, and Sarah Heejeong Yang tied for 3rd place yesterday at the 2024 CREATE (Cultivating Resources for Employment with Assistive TEchnology) Symposium sponsored by New York State Industries for the Disabled, Inc. (NYSID). For CREATE, college engineering students collaborate with rehabilitative support organizations to develop innovations that help those with disabilities succeed in their jobs. 

For their mechanical engineering capstone project, “'Be a Companion' Automatic Wheelchair Locking Device,” the group developed an attachable spring-loaded automatic locking device that safely secures a wheelchair’s wheel should an operator accidentally release the wheelchair's handles. The work was created in partnership with CP Unlimited, which offers vocational and employment opportunities, such as wheelchair operators, for individuals with disabilities. Professors Melody Baglione and David Wootton served as faculty advisors. 

New York Institute of Technology students placed first and second and Otsego Northern Catskills BOCES Northern Catskills Occupational Center shared third place with Cooper. 

More News from The Cooper Union

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.