Engineering students to the rescue. (News).(Rutgers University develop computer assisted tripod emergency equipment)(Brief Article)

IIE Solutions, February, 2002

A device created by five Rutgers University industrial engineering students and their professors puts a new twist on rescue operations. The computer-assisted tripod could enable emergency workers to retrieve victims trapped inside confined spaces such as wells without having to drop a rescuer into the shaft.

According to professor E.A. Elsayed, the tripod was one of many real-life" projects that resulted from Rutgers' most recent Design of Engineering Systems II senior course, in which students are given open-ended problems and must find solutions, construct a device, test it, and present it in a public forum. The rescue device can extract a person or animal of up to 235 pounds from a depth of up to nine feet.