The Co-making the Future China-US Young Maker Competition is an activity that supports the People-to-People Exchange between China and the US. The Competition enables makers to create innovative products in several categories, including health and fitness, by combining innovative design and cutting-edge technologies.

Purdue Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering undergraduate students Pablo Argote, Neal Patel, and Ryan Prince; recent graduate Sriram Boppana; and computer science undergraduate student Sam Kuhns co-developed the ExoMIND Glove, a wearable device equipped with accelerometers to quantify forearm, wrist, and finger angles and an electromyogram to monitor muscle activity.

The glove prompts users through movements and measures range of motion and muscle activity. The device could provide physical therapists with data that would help monitor the progression of a patient’s recovery during rehabilitation and inform decisions about therapy.

The ExoMIND Glove team members are all members or alumni of Purdue MIND (Medical Innovation, Networking, and Design), a multidisciplinary undergraduate student organization that promotes the growth of the biomedical engineering community at Purdue.

Purdue MIND fosters an environment where students can engage in medical innovation through solving modern clinical problems via their ingenuity, problem-solving skills and entrepreneurial mindsets. Members have the opportunity to participate in community service events, compete in design competitions, discuss current research, and network with a wide range of field professionals both within and outside of Purdue University. Members are not required to be biomedical engineers.

The organization is advised by Hugh Lee, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering. “These students are highly-motivated, self-starters who want to showcase their engineering skills for helping people with medical needs,” said Lee. “Since their inception in 2015, they have actively participated in a number of national biomedical device design competitions. Last year, they earned a finalist spot in the Biomedical Engineering Society’s National Undergraduate Design Competition. One of the most impressive parts about this group is that their work is done purely as an extracurricular activity outside of normal course requirement. Any students interested in learning new skills and creating technological solution for biomedical applications should definitely come join the group.”

Argote shares credit for the project’s success with all of the members of the club. “In all honesty this would not have been possible without the amazing members that Purdue MIND picked up that helped pursue competitions and tackle big responsibilities of the project,” said Argote, adding that the club has been active with other competitions on Hackster and Hackaday.  Hackster is a community dedicated to learning hardware; Hackaday is a website where users share novel uses for things.

Argote hopes that the Co-Making the Future competition is a springboard for more opportunities for club members. “Hopefully this will allow Purdue MIND to expand its capabilities for future generations.”

In addition to the five members going to China, the ExoMIND Glove team included: Ali Abusaleh, Raj Patel, Matthew Albaugh, Hamna Qureshi, Srinivas Govindan, Soo Han Soon, Jason Ummel, Harsh Patel, David Miller, Josh Damman, Scott Guidoboni, Matt Tharp, Patrick Giolando, Michael Williams.  Orlando Hoilett is the groups’ graduate student advisor.

Students interested in learning more about Purdue MIND are invited to attend the group’s upcoming call-outs on Purdue’s West Lafayette campus:

• Thursday, August 24th - 7:00PM WALC (Wilmeth Active Learning Center) 
• Thursday, August 31st - 7:00PM WALC