“Engineering programs must demonstrate that their students attain an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability;” (www.abet.org)
There is a desired need to make things more accessible to those not able to be as mobile. A recent project in the SolidWorks course was one where a toy was selected by students and the toy was then made accessible to children with physical disabilities. The toy selected by our group was a sock monkey tumbling car.
This toy car has a switch on the side of the body of the car to turn it on and off. We found that this switch was not easily accessible so we decided to incorporate a large button that would be located underneath the sock monkey, thus making it easier to push down on.
The end product involved using engineering skills and design to meet the needs of physically disabled children.