Everything Clicks for DifferenceMaker Winner

12/13/2024
By Ed Brennen

Sitting in the back of a class early this fall, Jetrin Orenberg found himself confused by a concept that his professor was covering. A sophomore double-majoring in computer science and electrical engineering, Orenberg looked around at a few of his classmates and sensed that they were confused, too.

“I wish the professor had a way of knowing how the class feels,” Orenberg thought to himself.

Then Orenberg remembered DifferenceMaker, UMass Lowell’s campus-wide program that helps students solve problems and pursue their ideas.

Fast-forward three months, and Orenberg was standing on stage at the Rist DifferenceMaker Institute’s Francis College of Engineering Prototyping competition, accepting a $2,500 first-place prize for his Comprehension Clicker, a wireless, handheld device that high school and college students can use to provide real-time learning feedback in the classroom.

“I want to make education better by empowering students to nip a problem in the bud if they don’t understand something,” said Orenberg, a Franklin, Massachusetts, native who advanced directly into the preliminary round of next spring’s DifferenceMaker $50K Idea Challenge.

While existing classroom clickers are designed for students to respond to questions and take part in polls, Orenberg’s device features a scale of buttons that students can use to express their level of understanding.

More than a dozen teams presented projects in the preliminary round of the Engineering Prototyping competition, held in the University Crossing lobby. Of those, five advanced to the finals upstairs at Moloney Hall, where they each had five minutes to pitch their ideas to a panel of four engineering alumni judges: Steve Geyster ’83, Chad LaFrance ’88, Rajia Abdelaziz ’16 and Ray Hamilton ’17.

First-year biomedical engineering majors Eleni Tekelis, John Khoury, Linda Neneh Jallow and Neytan Milioli took second place (and $1,500) for Pop-it Prosthetics, a customized, below-the-knee artificial limb for children that can be adjusted as they grow.

Originally a group project in their Introduction to Biomedical Engineering course with Asst. Prof. Yanfen Li, the students created a prototype in the Lawrence Lin MakerSpace — and earned extra credit for entering the DifferenceMaker competition.

“We’re grateful to have this opportunity as freshmen,” said Tekelis, a Worcester, Massachusetts, native who was inspired to devise an adjustable prosthetic after seeing a young family friend have to buy an expensive new one almost every year.

Neneh Jallow, who is from Lynn, Massachusetts, added that working in a group and networking with others through the DifferenceMaker program “is so beneficial to us as students.”

Brothers Callum and Haydn Hammill of Townsend, Massachusetts, earned the $1,000 third-place prize for Tree Frog, a wearable device that detects exposure to low-pressure blast waves, which can lead to traumatic brain injury. Their patent-pending device, which could help protect soldiers, construction workers, miners and others, features a synthetic membrane that ruptures when exposed to air pressure greater than 4 PSI.

“If we could change at least one person’s life with this device, that would be a success,” said Haydn, a senior graphic design major who was part of the winning ZipperBuddy team at last year’s competition.

“Everybody’s here with the same goal in mind, which is helping people,” added Callum, a senior mechanical engineering major.

The $500 People’s Choice Award went to Adam Warden, a senior computer science major from Lynn, for RightsWatch, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can help human rights watchdog organizations and journalists identify human rights violations in real time in places around the world such as Myanmar, Syria, Israel and Palestine.

“This is really important to me because I have family and friends who have been killed overseas in the past year,” said Warden, an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps cadet. “Even on social media, you scroll and scroll and see all these gross violations of human rights. I hate seeing it on my screen and feeling helpless, so I tried to make something with technology for good.”

Working with Hadi Amiri, an assistant professor in the Miner School of Computer & Information Sciences, and Nasir Almasri, a postdoctoral scholar at Boston University, Warden is developing “an integrated, AI-driven framework that combines object detection and natural language processing.” One part is an electronic device that attaches to a drone to detect and geotag physical signs of destruction; the other is a natural language model that scrapes the internet for content related to crimes.

Abdelaziz and Hamilton, co-founders of invisaWear Technologies, said the judges faced a tough deliberation in determining a winner.

“I was really impressed with all the teams,” said Hamilton, who noted that Orenberg stood out by giving the judges prototypes of the Comprehension Clicker to use during his interactive presentation.

“I was one of those shy people in class, afraid to raise my hand and ask questions,” Abdelaziz added. “So I definitely see a need for a solution to this problem.”

James Sherwood, dean of the Francis College of Engineering, congratulated all the teams and thanked the judges, who included a preliminary-round panel of engineering alumni Carol Devellian ’85, Ken Horton ’79, Dennis Gagne ’95, Leigh Sharrock ’03, Dan McCormick ’83 and Joe Hennessey ’85.

“Over the years, DifferenceMaker has become a beacon of entrepreneurship, empowering students not only to think outside the box, but to break the box,” Sherwood said. “I cannot wait to see what the next generation of DifferenceMakers will accomplish.”