QL+ Joins VA for National Disabled Employee Awareness Day
Tuesday October 29, 2009.

Tuesday, October 27th 2009 – A student team from Cal Poly’s College of Engineering’s Quality of Life Plus (QL+) Laboratory joined veterans and staff at the Veterans’ Administration’s Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System’s Annual National Disabled Employee Awareness Day to exchange ideas and accept challenges from veterans disabled in conflicts ranging from WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Beirut through Iraq and Afghanistan.  Highlight of the QL+ segment was the first public demonstration of a prototype of the Tablette, a device designed to allow wheelchair-bound veterans to dine in a wide variety of restaurants with convenience and dignity, by its designer, Cal Poly Industrial Engineering student James Juma.  Juma, winner of the QL+ Award in the 2009 Innovation Quest design competition, took the opportunity to interact with veterans on the design, who were positive on its simplicity, convenience and high quality finish.

Joining Juma and fellow QL+ team member Dan Moran at the event were four students from the QL+/AdapTech wheelchair design team, who engaged veterans and the representative of the Colours in Motion athletic wheelchair design/build team on their Cal Poly senior project, a cross country capable wheelchair.

Veterans and VA staff alike warmly welcomed QL+ as filling a much needed gap in the community serving disabled veterans.  Marianne Davis, Chief of Voluntary Service for the VA’s West Los Angeles Healthcare Center, commented that she and her staff are often faced with requests from veterans for things that are very important to the veterans’ lives, but just haven’t been built yet.  Now there is a ready resource that they can turn to for such needs, Ms. Davis said.

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