Student group hopes product redesigns prove more accessible

9/24/2020 Maddie Yang

Written by Maddie Yang

CODA—a small group of about ten students on campus—is designing and producing products for people in need, including devices that aim to improve accessibility and independent living. 

CODA founders: Josie Suter, Andrew Klingberg, Bella Pulido, Brant Bedore, and Joseph Rexroad.
CODA founders: Josie Suter, Andrew Klingberg, Bella Pulido, Brant Bedore, and Joseph Rexroad.

MechSE seniors Andrew Klingberg and Josie Suter founded CODA (Community Oriented Device Accommodations) along with fellow undergraduate student Sahar Ramahi and Bella Pulido, a recent alumna. They began as part of another club that was competition-based, but realized they wanted to focus on expanding their outreach rather than on the competition itself.  

“I started doing club outreach back in community college. When I transferred to Illinois along with a couple other club members, we wanted to take the outreach aspect a couple steps further,” said Suter. 

The group was inspired by their Design for Manufacturability course, ME 270, where the final project was to redesign and simplify an existing product at a lower cost. They use this design model for their projects, conducting extensive research to see what solutions already exist and then modifying them to be simpler and easy to manufacture.  

Josie Suter and Andrew Klingberg in a product design meeting.
Josie Suter and Andrew Klingberg in a product design meeting.

Over the last year, they have designed 3D-printable assistive grips for makeup products and eating utensils, which are intended for people with dexterity impairments or who may otherwise have trouble gripping these items. Their models can be downloaded and printed by those who need them, or if access to a 3D printer is limited, CODA manufactures and ships the products themselves, using resources available to them through the university, like the Innovation Studio.

“A lot of these devices are custom. They need to be specific to the individual—making them either hard to find or expensive to make. We have access to the Innovation Studio, countless 3D printers, laser cutters, all these tools—and it’s very cheap for us to use,” said Klingberg.  

Sneeze guard design developed by CODA students.
Sneeze guard design developed by CODA students.

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CODA lost access to many of the campus resources they were using last spring, and some of their projects were uprooted as well. They were in the midst of designing kinesthetic devices for a school teacher in Texas to help students with ADHD focus in class without distracting other students. However, CODA’s existing designs proved less relevant as students weren’t attending in-person classes at the time. Instead, they changed their focus to help the teacher return to in-person classes, designing sneeze guards made out of laser-cut sheets of acrylic. After producing some prototypes, they sent them to her for use in her classroom. 

Moving forward, they hope to continue to work on the classroom devices as well as some other projects. The team is in the midst of finalizing their website, where they will share a catalog of their 3D models for anyone to download and print them or to request CODA to print or manufacture the product for them. Alternatively, if someone is in need of a device that doesn’t exist, CODA can help design something to fit their specific needs.  

“We're always open to new group members who are interested in stuff like this. And there isn't really a skill level required for this because we also need people to brainstorm ideas or say, ‘Hey, I know someone who could benefit from something like this,’ or ‘Hey, I've seen a product that does something like this, and I think we could 3D print it instead,’” said Klingberg.

If you have an interest in participating, or have an accessibility device you need, reach out to CODA at coda.uiuc@gmail.com.


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This story was published September 24, 2020.