Students Combine Teamwork, Creativity, and Accessible Design at the 2nd Annual EDIE Make-a-thon
Bridging the Gap: Students Collaborate to Solve Real-World Challenges in Mobility
By Jordyn Pike
In collaboration with 好色先生TV’s College of Engineering , the Integrated Innovation Institute (iii) hosted the second annual Engineering Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (EDIE) Make-a-thon from March 20–21. Over 70 students competed in the event, working together over two days to develop innovative solutions.
In groups of four to five students, teams were tasked with defining a target problem, prototyping a solution, and presenting their pitch to a panel of judges. The Make-a-thon serves as an opportunity and outlet for students to work creatively and present their ideas in a fast-paced, action-packed environment.
EDIE Make-a-thon 2026
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“We wanted to create an inclusive space and opportunity for students to collaborate and apply innovative thinking to tackle real-world problems. ” - Gabi Rogers, EDIE Academic Advisor
Student Participation
Open to all undergraduate and graduate students across CMU, participating students represented a wide variety of majors, including Information Systems, Design, Product Management, Neuroscience, Integrated Innovation for Products & Services, and more.
Including students who are not enrolled in the College of Engineering is a feature of the event, and it’s integral to the spirit of the Make-a-thon. To make the event more accessible to a wide audience, students could sign up individually and be placed on a team. This was something that EDIE academic advisor, Gabi Rogers, found to be a great opportunity for students to meet their peers and step outside of their comfort zones.
No technical skills were required to enter the Make-a-thon, as the focus centers on creativity, ingenuity, and innovation. According to EDIE Program Director and Distinguished Service Professor Mark Sanders, the Make-a-thon is more about the problem-solution fit than executing a perfectly polished prototype.
“The event is accessible to all students at every skill level because the focus is on developing concepts and solutions for specific ability or accessibility challenges of a user or customer.” - Mark Sanders, EDIE Program Director & Distinguished Service Professor
Contest Details & Theme Explanation
This year’s Make-a-thon theme was “Accessibility, Mobility, and Prosthetics”. Students were responsible for creating products that were accessible in nature, but they had the freedom to decide how to implement this in their final prototype.
Students were given just 24 hours to develop their team’s solution to the prompted problem, including identifying the area of accessible design they wanted to prototype.
While time constraints may have limited the scope and depth of the student projects, Ellen Ayoob, Program Director, Master of Integrated Innovation for Products and Services (MIIPS), hopes that this shows students they are capable of creativity and innovation that can be life-changing.
“I hope the students realize that within a 24-hour challenge, they can be on their way to making a real difference in this world, should they explore their problem space and ideas more. There was so much promising work.” - Ellen Ayoob, Program Director, MIIPS
Teams received reimbursement for materials and access to maker and work spaces on the CMU campus. Each team also had access to talented mentors who work in industries related to the theme. Mentors offered valuable advice and critique on both product and pitch, preparing students for the final presentations.
After finalizing their products and prototypes, teams had three minutes to present and pitch their ideas.
Keynote Speaker, Mentors & Judges
Even though the Make-a-thon is fundamentally a competition, it is also a fantastic opportunity for students to learn from and network with professionals in entrepreneurship, engineering, design, and related fields. From the keynote speaker to the mentors, judges, and iii faculty assisting in running the event, there was a wealth of professional knowledge for students to learn from over this weekend.
Keynote Speaker
Before the event formally began, students heard from the keynote speaker, Carmelo Montalvo, a serial Entrepreneur with over a decade in leadership, product innovation, and business development. He also has ties to CMU, as he is the Defensive Line coach on the Tartan Football team, making him a perfect fit to inspire and relate to students attending this event.
Ellen Ayoob invited Carmelo to be the keynote speaker at the event, as she wanted the speaker to be experienced with the theme and working with students. Ellen remarked that Carmelo was "someone with experience with medical devices, high energy, and a human-centered innovation perspective to set the tone for the next 24 hours. He was insightful, humble, and inspired the students to keep real problems for real humans at the center of their work."
"We think of our mentors and judges as the extended community that supports students through the event with specific expertise, insights, and general mentoring. We want participants to engage with working professionals to gain a real sense of how industries operate, evaluate, and think about innovation and how to communicate ideas."
Mentors
After the keynote speech, students hit the ground running with prototype development, gaining valuable insights from the volunteer mentors. These mentors have firsthand experience in design and product development and were instrumental in providing teams with feedback on their products. The professional mentors included:
- Hardware Design Research
- UX Designer, Onward Robotics
- User-Centric Design
- Software Engineering Institute, Design & Technical Program Leader
- AI Product Builder
By meeting with these mentors, students were able to incorporate critiques and feedback into their final product pitches, which members of the three winning teams found extremely helpful.
, a student in the MIIPS Online program on Team Noctra, noted that mentor insights were advantageous for his team. He remarked that "Patrick Scanlan helped us focus in on a human story for our presentation that related the experience of a specific prosthetic user, while also trying to make that experience relatable to non-prosthetic users. Rishi Hiremath helped us think through a specific design consideration for our product - How might we appropriately balance structure & routine with flexible use & mobility?" These suggestions from Patrick and Rishi helped Jimmy's team make their presentation more precisely resonate with their target audience and make their product more effective for the hypothetical users.
Mentors were not only helpful to Jimmy and Team Noctra; Vicky Chen and Team Quik-thetics also found their interactions with the mentors extremely helpful. Quik-thetics received feedback from Tanisha Smith on the team's presentation and implemented her advice to make their pitch easier to understand. Vicky Chen commented that, "Speaking with Tanisha Smith, the most valuable advice she provided was regarding how to showcase our solution and demo. Originally, it was just two screenshots of the product, but after her guidance, we decided to do a carefully laid out storyboard, making our product easier to understand."
Judges
Once the team's prototypes were completed and their presentations practiced, students had one final task in the 24-hour event: to pitch their products in front of the panel of judges.
- Advanced Manufacturing Engineering, Mill 19
- Director, Innovation & Strategic Partnerships, Inglis
Syeda Raisa - Design to Value & Flawless Launch Leader, Westinghouse
- Digital Accessibility Specialist, 好色先生TV
The judges graded each team's three-minute presentation using a rubric based on five categories: Originality, Design Functionality, Effectiveness, Likelihood of Future Implementation, and Presentation Pitch Quality. The judges selected three teams as winners; Team Noctra won Best Prototype, Team Quik-thetics won Best Presentation, and Team CIMU was named the Best Overall Award recipient.
Best Prototype - Team Noctra
The winners of the Best Prototype award were Team Noctra for their Smart Prosthetic
Hygienic Dock prototype. Team Noctra members included: Jimmy Rooney (MIIPS Online), Umang Pandey (Biomedical Engineering), Rushabh Kankaria (Information Systems), and Eliseea Faur (Industrial Design).
Their product’s goal is to help prosthetic users maintain hygiene and keep their prosthetics dry and ready to wear the next day. To accomplish this, their dock would consistently dry the prosthetics lining, serve as a more optimized storage solution, and include an associated app to monitor data.
When coming up with their solution, the team took the first 30 minutes at the start of the Make-a-thon to research the theme, collectively developing twelve topics that were problematic for the target group. Then the group determined which problem area to pursue based on the level of impact for the user, the market appeal, and the complexity of the solution. These factors led the team to select their prosthetic docking solution, assisted by group member Elissea’s background knowledge from her coursework. This method of breaking down the problem and identifying a problem to solve with a market and a product suitable was beneficial for the team. Umang commented, “With the design and visual thinking method, we were able to narrow down our problem statement. At the same time, we also considered immediate impact, benefit, costs, and need in selecting our final problem.”
“Winning felt rewarding, especially with strong feedback on our prototype. It was also inspiring to see everyone’s skills come together so effectively.” -Rushabh Kankaria, Team Noctra
Best Presentation - Quik-thetics
For Best Presentation, the judges awarded Team Quik-thetics for their AI-native prosthetics software. The individuals behind this award-winning presentation were: Vicky Chen (Business Administration), Adam Kablawi (Electrical and Computer Engineering), Poon Bodhisuvarnachat (Electrical and Computer Engineering), and Tejas Sasan (Business Administration). This team of all first-year CMU students learned about the event from a flyer and formed a group around their combined business and engineering knowledge.
The Quik-thetics team identified that the manual prosthesis engineering process wastes valuable time for individuals awaiting prosthetics. Their proposed solution was to create software that would scan and capture images of the limb requiring a prosthetic, creating a 3D model of the stump. Then, with this model, the software would generate a prosthetic socket, which would then be sent to a manufacturer to create for individuals who need a prosthetic.
“All of our specialities – and our trust in each other – culminated in winning the best presentation award.” - Poon Bodhisuvarnachat
Best Overall — Team CIMU
Awarded the most points by the judges and the recipients of the $700 cash, Team CIMU won the distinction of being Best Overall at the 2nd Annual EDIE Make-a-thon. The members of the team that took home the first-place prize were: Gryphon Chong (Information Systems), Mia Manton (Mechanical & Biomedical Engineering), David Newsom (Mechanical Engineering), and Sofia Warehall (Mechanical Engineering). The members of the group knew each other from Roboclub's prosthetic project, and all had experience and interest in accessible design.
"The theme of this Make-a-thon was something I knew we'd all be interested in, and that's the main reason we signed up." — David Newsom, Team CIMU
The problem the team chose to solve within the themes of accessibility, mobility, and prosthetic design was that ligament injuries impair joint function, yet effective tools to restore range of motion remain limited. CIMU also identified a large consumer market for orthopedic products and related physical therapy services, citing their product's ability to go straight to market. Their product, the CIMU sleeve, would help users keep injured joints in check and prevent further damage.
Along with a physical device, the CIMU sleeve would have a companion app that would allow the user to configure their sleeve to their level of comfort. In their presentation, the team also outlined future design improvements and how they would conduct a product rollout, starting with sales to physical therapists, then moving to the consumer market.
Over the course of the event, Team CIMU found that they worked well together, and were able to problem-solve and rely on each other and their prior knowledge over the 24-hour stretch. At a certain point, David noted that the sensors on their prototype were not functioning properly, and the team did not know why, but they remained calm and worked through the problem as a group. They eventually solved the problem while pacing themselves throughout the event, culminating in the team winning Best Overall for the CIMU sleeve.