From Discomfort to Understanding: Designing an Accessible Symptom Tracker for People with Learning Disabilities
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Project TEAL was developed during my Leadership in Action placement at Papworth Trust. The project grew out of everyday observations and conversations with service users and staff, and became an opportunity to explore how engineering can respond to communication barriers in a practical and respectful way.
Beyond the prototype itself, the experience changed how I think about assistive technology: accessibility is not an additional feature, but a design requirement that should shape the system from the beginning. The project also reinforced the importance of testing assumptions in context, listening closely to users, and balancing technical ambition with privacy, safeguarding and real-world usability.
The poster summarises the development and evaluation of the system, as well as the next steps for taking Project TEAL further.
I'm an Engineering undergraduate at the University of Cambridge with research interests in biomedical engineering, assistive technology, medical devices and systems engineering. I enjoy applying engineering principles to address real-world healthcare challenges through interdisciplinary research and rapid prototyping.
My technical experience includes embedded systems (ESP32 and Arduino), electronics design, CAD and mechanical design (SolidWorks), 3D printing, sensor integration, mobile application development and human-centred engineering. I am particularly interested in combining hardware, software and control systems to develop intelligent biomedical technologies.
In the long term, I hope to contribute to research in physiological monitoring, closed-loop medical systems, artificial organs and advanced biomedical devices, bridging engineering innovation with clinical applications.