Wearable Device Challenge (NCMEP)
The 2025 Wearable Device Challenge will take place on Wednesday, April 9, 2025, on the beautiful campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.
The Wearable Device Challenge integrates the One Health Initiative concepts and the Grand Challenges of Engineering to create a competition where students will be tasked with designing a wearable device to monitor the health of a human or animal based on environmental factors and/or disease transmission.
What is ASSIST?
ASSIST creates self-powered, wearable health and environmental monitoring systems. ASSIST stands for “Advanced Self-Powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and Technologies.” ASSIST is an Engineering Research Center financed by the National Science Foundation and headquartered at NC State University. Education and outreach are an integral part of the Center’s mission and vision. The Wearable Device Challenge aims to disseminate the core of ASSIST work to the K-12 community and build the pipeline for young scientists and engineers who will be prepared to continue the important work of identifying and solving the Grand Challenges of Engineering for the future.
What is the Wearable Device Challenge?
The Wearable Device Challenge integrates the One Health Initiative concepts and the Grand Challenges of Engineering to create a competition where students will be tasked with designing a wearable device to monitor the health of a human or animal based on environmental factors and/or disease transmission.
- The One Health Initiative is a collaborative initiative that focuses on the health of humans, animals, and the environment. Through studying these connections we can better understand animal-to-human interactions, prevention of disease transmission, and correlations between the environment, and animal and human health.
- The Grand Challenges of Engineering focus on fourteen areas of engineering that pose the greatest global challenges, encouraging international collaboration to solve each challenge. One of the fourteen topics of the Grand Challenges of Engineering is advanced health informatics.
For the competition, students will use the engineering design process to design their wearable device to solve a global health challenge.
- High school students will be required to design a working prototype of their device along with an ad campaign and poster.
- Middle school students will be required to design a prototype of their device along with an ad campaign and poster.
