A few months ago, Chinook Enterprises was contacted by the Engineering Technology Department at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. They asked if any of our staff members had ideas for devices or inventions that would aid the disabled in the workplace. They were looking for ideas that could be developed by WWU engineering students who were involved in a technology contest. One of our staff, Steve Miller, submitted an idea for possible development by the students.
Steve is one of our Employment Specialists and has been with Chinook for about 6 months. Steve has been working with participants at the Sedro-Woolley Public Library, as well as the Mount Vernon Library. One difficulty he had noticed was how time consuming it was for our clients to straighten the books. The libraries want the books all lined up with the front edge of the shelves. Our participants can do this, but it takes a lot of time to do it one book at a time. Steve pondered the idea of how to speed up this process. He wondered if he could develop a device that would straighten the books on a shelf all at once.
Steve thought of an idea to speed up the process of straightening books, but he hadn’t actually built the device. When the WWU staff contacted Chinook, he thought that this may be the opportunity to see if it really works. He explained his idea to Nicole Hoekstra from WWU, and a short time later he was contacted and told that one of the teams chose his concept. Steve explained his idea to the team, including the basic size and structure of the device. The team of engineering students took it from there. They developed the specific shape, size, and materials to be used for the device. It needed to be both strong and lightweight. The team constructed a prototype and took it to the Sedro-Woolley Public Library. The library staff tried it out, and they were very pleased with the results. They said it cut their time in half! The WWU team entered the device in the “AbilityOne Network Design Challenge.” This competition is sponsored by an organization called NISH, which serves disabled workers nationwide. The team, which was competing with other universities from around the country, became one of the finalists in the competition. Their prototype of Steve’s concept won $1,000 for Western Washington University! Steve was amazed at the success of his idea. Good job, Steve!
