In late 2012, five Psychology majors from Towson University competed in the 6th Annual Ergonomic Design Competition sponsored by Auburn Engineers Inc. The competition provides an opportunity for undergraduate and/or graduate student teams—the majority of participants are graduate students in industrial engineering or ergonomics fields– to assess, design, and present their solutions to real-world human factors and ergonomics problems. Approximately 40 student teams from all over the country send in their work and solutions electronically to be evaluated. This year’s group, under faculty leadership from David Earnest of the Psychology Department, became the first Towson University team to participate in the competition and only the second team composed of Psychology students ever to compete.
The competition consists of multi-step preliminary and final design problems/charrettes. Each problem required student teams to evaluate work systems, assess potential ergonomic issues, design tools and workstations, conduct problem development and analyses, provide design recommendations, and communicate findings through written reports. This year students were presented with the problems of developing best practices, tools and /or equipment to aid organic farmers (preliminary problem) and conducting an ergonomic risk analyses of the pizza delivery industry and develop relevant solutions (final problem).
Towson’s all undergraduate team received honorable mention in the 2012 competition, earning a plaque for the team and a certificate and cash prize for each student.
The Towson University Team included:
Samantha Delaney
Peter Crowe
Jackie Cunningham
Ryan Muffi
Claire Shah
David Earnest (Faculty Advisor)
