ME Student Organization: Quality of Life+

The Quality of Life Plus Student Chapter is a new and rising engineering organization that combines the innovation of student projects, the supportive nature of social organizations, and service-based volunteering into one single club. They work with the Quality of Life Plus National Organization to foster and innovate assistive technology for “challengers” who are veterans, first responders, and people in our local disability community.  

Last year, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented some senior projects from working halfway through the spring semester, leaving their projects unaccomplished as the working seniors graduated. This year, the club took on the challenge of accomplishing two virtual travel work projects from the national organization: the manufacturing of an adaptive bicycle handlebar, and the renovation of a wheelchair to a hockey sled transfer device. 

The adaptive bicycle handlebar project was originally a senior design project for Dr. Shirley, a war veteran with prosthetic arms. The assembly process paused due to the school lockdown following the COVID-19 pandemic. Student chapter member and project leader Andrew Fineman took on the task to succeed in the senior project and manufactured it in order to deliver the adaptive handlebar to Dr. Shirley. 

 The wheelchair to hockey sled transfer device was also a senior design project designed to challenge Jason Ross, a war veteran amputee who plays adaptive ice hockey. While this project was finished, the final product had stability issues that failed to deliver its original purpose of transferring Jason from his wheelchair to the hockey sled. Club project lead Alex Sprague leads 5 passionate student engineers to renovate the device by brainstorming creative solutions and are planning to finish the design improvements by the end spring semester.

All project and general body meetings have been done virtually, using platforms such as Zoom, Slack, and Discord to communicate with members. The club has invited QL+ challengers and engineers from Illumina and Hologic on the impact of technology and hosted resume workshops to support the member’s future careers.

The virtual meetings have been one of the biggest challenges in the national organization, but the motivation to improve the quality of life for folks who need it and the exchange between bright and young minds have been the driving forces at SDSU’s Quality of Life Plus. 

Reported by QL+ SDSU Chapter President Kenzo Maetani.