5 Awesome Student-Led Engineering Projects That Can Seriously Change Lives

Engineers are a critical part of this world we live in and it is through their inventions that we gain access to innovative technology. Some of these inventions even have the potential to change lives dramatically.

Let’s take a look at some of the amazing student-led engineering projects which have the potential to be life-changing.

1.MIT Engineers Design Survival Suits

First, we’ll explore an innovation that was developed in order to face danger and designed to make the world a safer place through its use. It turns out that many fishermen and tourists on pleasure boat rides are swept off during stormy weather where rescue is almost impossible until the storms calm down. In these cases, the victims need survival suits that can allow them to stay alive until rescue arrives. In harsh temperatures and cold stormy waters, all current forms of survival suits can only last up to six hours. However, a team of MIT’s design class students came up with an innovative variation that can double that time of survival, time that can be crucial for victims. The team combined batteries and heating pads to greatly increase the heating effects of the suit. (Learn More)

2. Stanford Engineers Use Machine Learning Tech Predict Landslides

This is a project , led by a team of Stanford University engineering students in their final year employs machine learning to create a map of landslides that could be used to predict and analyze the geographical area for more possibilities of landslides by training the algorithm based on the previous data of Google Maps and the historical records of the particular area. They used Spatial Vector graphics to analyze the terrain and deduce their results in the form of a graph that highlights the points that are highly likely to suffer from a landslide in the near future. This result can then be used on any other region prone to landslides and help to predict occurrences globally. (Learn More)

3. Berkely Engineers Students Use AR for Visually Impaired

The next project,  created by Berkeley University engineering student, employs augmented reality for the visually impaired. This team took on the initiative to create a product that can greatly benefit blind people.  Their innovation incorporates Microsoft HoloLens in order to give blind people some aid and independence. (Learn More)

4. MIT Engineering Students Create Responsive Hands-Free AR/VR System

Next, we have a project that has great potential for home and entertainment. Another group of MIT engineering students developed LUI, an interface that uses freehand gestures and voice control cues. Using ReactJS, the highly responsive interface is created to deploy on AR and VR systems. It can perform several major tasks like browsing or using YouTube through swipes and air taps which makes it extremely user accessible. (Learn More)

5. Carnegie Mellon Engineering Students Train and Generate RNA

This project, led by students of Carnegie Mellon University, used Neural Networks or NN model to train and generate RNA data from the partial gene sequence. This amazing project has the potential to bring certain research to the next level. The model helps researchers study and analyze the RNA of any cell and by the data collected the model can be trained to high efficiency to sequence the RNA from the given part and reconstruct it fully. (Learn More)