On July 12, the 2021 China-US Young Maker Competition (Beijing) themed “Co-making the Future” kicked off online. It attracted 400 participants in 85 teams from 24 universities, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Beijing Jiaotong University, etc. Five teams composed of the students from the Department of Industrial Design, College of Art and Design, Beijing University of Technology, from the Department of User Experience, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University and from Purdue University won two grand prizes, two first prizes and a second prize. The two grand-prize winners, “MORE THAN a CANE”, a multi-scenario intelligent cane for the blind, and “TwinkOO”, a caring design for autistic children, will compete in the national final as representatives from the Beijing competition area.

“MORE THAN a CANE”, a muti-scenario intelligent cane for the blind

“TwinkOO”, a care design for autistic children

“MORE THAN a CANE” is a detachable and stretchable intelligent cane. It integrates Vision API, an AI image recognition technology, and ICDAR, a general text recognition technology to solve the mobility difficulties of the visually impaired. “TwinkOO” is a caring product for autistic children. It uses AI to identify and calculate autistic children’s movements and enables music therapeutic interactions between these children and their parents.

The China-US Young Maker Competition has been hosted by the Ministry of Education six times, which is a significant discipline contest between Chinese and American universities.