Excellent Engineers: Dawes students create device to help people with walking canes

May 5, 2025

Dawes Middle School students have earned state recognition for making the world a better place with their engineering minds.
 
Sixth and seventh graders in the Dawes Engineering Club created, built, programmed and tested an electronic device that helps people with canes avoid walking on uneven surfaces for the Samsung Solve For Tomorrow national contest. Contest judges honored the Diamondbacks by selecting them as state champions.

Team members Aryan, Keegan, Vincent, Zander, Aydin, Matteo and Alexander worked with club co-advisors Kristin Page and Frank Martinez on the engineering project.  

“We decided to enter the competition because we thought that we could help someone someday,” Aryan said. “This device right here is the thing that we’ve been developing for a few months now and that the whole team put a lot of effort into.”

Aryan and Keegan said the group’s primary concern in the contest was finding ways to care for others. One student on the team has watched a family member fall many times while using a walking cane, and the Diamondbacks wanted to ensure no one else went through the same experience. They made a visual and auditory device that attaches to both walking canes and white canes, which are used by people who are either blind or have vision difficulties.
 
“I think it sort of just helps the world,” Keegan said. “People that may have problems, not just challenges with a cane, but literally anything, to be able to come up with a solution and fix it, that’s good.”

 
Page said the Solve For Tomorrow contest gave the Diamondbacks a positive platform to showcase their STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills. The competition’s goal was to encourage students to develop a STEM-based product to improve the local community. The process included brainstorming ideas, completing a research-and-development phase, submitting an activity plan and producing a three-minute video for judges.
 
“It’s not just getting a grade in a class,” Page said. “It’s being able to use their skills hands-on that they’ve learned to come up with a product that they’re really proud of. We know when we have an impact on our work that can positively impact others, that’s a really great feeling.”
 
The group began investigating ideas for the device last semester. The Diamondbacks talked with owners of local mobility businesses and users of walking and white canes for essential background information. They then designed a 3D-printed holder that contains a circuit board, batteries and accelerometer. The accelerometer alerts the device if a person is about to place the cane on an uneven surface.
 
The team’s next achievement was creating computer code for a Micro:bit program inside the device. The program is wired to a screen that displays a red ‘X’ and produces a beeping sound if the cane is leaning at an angle. This happens when the cane touches a crack on the sidewalk, a curb surface or another non-flat space. The screen displays a check mark and indicates the four cardinal directions when the cane is on a level walking surface.

 
After constructing the prototype, the team spent time testing it in front of the school building and in the recess area. Keegan said it was exciting to watch how everyone’s input made a difference in the final product.
 
“I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned is that, teamwork, it’s not just one person,” Keegan said. “Our project was built because a lot of people collaborated and introduced a lot of new ideas that really enforced the structure we’ve already built. It was just so much easier.”

 
Aryan said the group had to solve many problems throughout the project. They made the device lightweight enough to avoid affecting the cane user’s balance, and they used a Velcro-style wrap to attach it to the cane. Testing also revealed that it would be better to fasten it in a higher position on the cane.
 
“We were originally going to put it at the bottom of the cane, but we decided to put it at the top so people could hear it better,” Aryan said.

 
Samsung provided Dawes with a $12,000 state-winning technology package of five Galaxy Book laptops, five monitors and a sound tower. Dawes staff will use the monitors for educational data analysis and split-screen monitoring capabilities, and students can use the laptops if they do not have their own device present at school. The sound tower will assist recess communication needs, quarterly student celebrations and many other school events. Dawes also won this honor in 2023. 
 
Keegan said it was a good feeling to know the state prize would help others at Dawes.
 
“It makes me really happy because I think providing opportunities for others at our school is going to be really good,” Keegan said. “Maybe even when I’m not here, those opportunities will still be there, and it’s going to, I think, help and make this school a better place.”

 
Page said she feels the cane-assistance device will be the first of many world-changing inventions that this group of Dawes students will create.
 
“I think future engineers are definitely in this club,” Page said. “It’s something that even talking to some of the past engineering clubs that have made it this far in the competition here at Dawes, they want to go into different engineering fields and use what they learned here as sixth, seventh, eighth graders to be able to impact their future and other people’s lives.”

To learn more about Career and Technical Education at LPS, visit https://home.lps.org/cte.
 
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