The 7th Annual BME Bio-Tech Contests 2005 took place February 5, 2005. This year's theme of the contest was to develop and present a concept using Electrical, Electronic, Biomedical, and/or Electro-Optics to assist a persons' disability - or to improve a persons' ability to manage tasks that usually require assistance. The contest focus is on students' individual ideas and in particular, the contest provides a forum for these future engineers to share those ideas that focus on technology assisted care.

Sponsored by IEEE Coastal LA Section, IEEE Central Coast Section, and by IEEE Los Angeles Council.

The finalists and their proposals, as selected by a panel of judges, were:

1^st place    Text to Speech   

                                                   Paul Ingerson

2^nd place   Stander with "Artificial Skin" Sensors and Biofeedback for Disabled Children

                                                   Cynthia Kuykendall

3^rd place    A Pacemaker with Potential

                                                   Jason Kotzin

4^th place    Implanted Pharmacy

                                                 Amir Shahheydari

(The results were  announced at the 50th Annual National Engineers Week banquet.)

The Contest Panel members and/or judges (not more that one per participating institution) were: Dr. Willis Downing, CSUN; Dr. Bogdan Kuszta, Caltech; Mr. Jack Iverson, IEEE/EMBS; Dr. David Braun, Calpoly SLO; Dr. Richard Cockrum, CSUP; Dr. Ernesto Suaste, CINVESTAV-IPN; Dr. Fleur Tehrani, CSUF; Dr. Dennis M. (Mike) Briggs, IEEE; and contest coordinators: Larry Dalton, Chair, IEEE/LAC, Dr. Maryam Moussavi, CSULB, and Dr. Chris Druzgalski, CSULB. Students and sponsors interested in The 7th Annual IEEE Bio-Tech Contest 2005 please check www.csulb.edu/~druz/BMEBIOTECH or email to druz@csulb.edu.