Third Annual National Design Competition

Young woman in business attire holding a first place award medal in front of a scientific poster presentation at a conference.

Virginia Tech student Reagan Green, one of the winners from the 2024/25 National Design Competition.

Design. Transform Lives.

Our annual National Design Competition challenges student teams to engineer real-world solutions for veterans and emergency responders with injuries and disabling conditions. This year’s challenge focuses on adaptive athletes, creating a safe, effective warming system for residual limbs—designed in partnership with Team USA’s para sliding program.

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Meet this year’s athletes

Kevin Bittenbender - U.S. Army veteran
and left leg amputee

Will Castillo - U.S. Marine Corps veteran
and left leg amputee

Dan Rizzieri - double below knee amputee

Ivan Morera - U.S. Army Green Beret veteran
and left-hand amputee

Dave Nichols - Vietnam War veteran
and double below knee amputee

The Challenge

Design a High-Performance Residual Limb Warmer for Winter Para-Athletes

During winter sliding sports like para-bobsled and para-skeleton, athletes often remove prosthetics during training and competition, leaving residual limbs vulnerable to cold, stiffness, and injury. Your mission: develop a lightweight, comfortable, and performance-ready warming system that helps athletes stay warm between and during runs—without interfering with movement or equipment.

Real-World Impact

This is not just a class project.

  • Teams will collaborate directly with para-athletes recruited by Kim Seevers, Chair of the USA Para Sliding Development Committee.

  • Designs will be evaluated not just for innovation, but for practicality, safety, and generalizability across a range of limb types (arm, above-the-knee, and below-the-knee amputations).

  • Each athlete mentor can receive the device their team creates. The winning design may be selected for use during official Team USA practices and competitions—including international events.

  • Student teams will move through three engineering design reviews:

    • Preliminary Design Review (PDR)

    • Critical Design Review (CDR)

    • Test Readiness Review (TRR)
      All reviews are held virtually. The competition culminates in an in-person final event at Virginia Tech, in collaboration with the university’s Biomedical Engineering Department.

    • 9/30/25: Virtual Roundtable 1 - Competition Kickoff and Q&A with the Athletes

    • 10/14/25: Virtual Roundtable 2 - Prosthetics and Amputations Basics

    • 10/28/25: Preliminary Design Review (PDR)

    • 11/11/25: Virtual Roundtable 3 - Design Generalizability (or TBD depending on feedback from the PDR)

    • 12/2/25: Comprehensive Design Review (CDR)

    • 2/10/26: Virtual Roundtable 4 - Spring Semester Kickoff and Final Competition Testing/Validation Plan Q&A

    • 3/10/26: Test Readiness Review (TRR) *subject to change based on team spring break schedules

    • 3/31/26: Roundtable 4 - Final Competition Preparation and Q&A

    • 4/17/26: Final In-Person Competition at Virginia Tech (final details TBA)

    • 4/18/26: Athlete testing & closing ceremony held at the ice rink at the Lancerlot Sports Complex in Vinton, VA

  • While the real reward is the opportunity to build something that makes a difference, this year’s winning team may receive:

    • A monetary prize (pending sponsorship)

    • The opportunity to see their design used by Team USA athletes in real-world competition

Meet this year’s student engineers

Florida Atlantic University
Team "A.R.C.T.I.C. Owls"

Jerin George, Ella Robertson, Vimala Goolcharan, Priscilla Sanchez, and Caled Ghannam

George Mason University
"Team 4ward"

Jacob Lockey, Leah Werme, Aidan Zenter, and Subhi Mekkidouble

University of South Florida
Team "Project IGNIS"

Iris Jimenez-Domingo, Urvi Jain, Jazmine Pope, and Sarah Blubaum

Virginia Commonwealth University
Team "The Ram-Tastic 4"

Sulaiman Alrabah, Yahya Alrushaid, Mudhi Albader, and Rianah Aleisa.

Virginia Tech (Biomedical Engineering)
Team "Stub-ZeroHokies"

William Underwood, Kaleb Belcher, Leo Jasper, Catherine Chen, and Markel Stubbs

Virginia Tech (Medical Engineering)
Team "HokieHEAT"

Sophie Evans, Eric Shunk, Seth Babb, Kate Blough, Maria Sherer, and Jack Genesi

Bucknell University
Team "B3 (Bison Battle Buddies)"

Tim Robertson, Macy Volp, Jordan Kenton, and Mert Guney

CU Boulder
Team "BuffaloHIDE"

Matteo Coscia, David Debretsion, Nathan Day, Anna Sallee, Cassie Eisen, Alyssa Radman, and Sara Wissner

Duquesne University
Team "Frostbyte"

Ben Betz, Domenico Fusco, Ashley Mingrinov, Dominic Dezort, and Billy Sanchez

University of Dayton
Team "FireFlyers"

Alex Belli, Najwan Orabi, Miriel Yeh, Anna Gagnon, and Izzy Kemp

University of Cincinnati
Team "Bearcat Bobsled"

Joe Robbins, Ruiyang Sun, and Ethan Edelenbos

Rowan University
Team "Brew Crew"

Emily Santos, Nicholas Raylman, and Sierra Finn

2024/25 Highlights

Want to host next year’s competition?

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