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Mechanical Engineering Team Wins at Annual CREATE Symposium

POSTED ON: May 4, 2026

Four students hold a big check behind a woman in a wheelchair

(L to R) Danielle Chiu, Myisha Hassan, Ayushi Bhattacharjee, and Asmi Shirsat accept CREATE award with Kim Hill Ridley, chief disability officer, for New York State

A team of Albert Nerken School of Engineering students won $10,000 at the New York State Industries for the Disabled’s (NYSID) annual Cultivating Resources for Employment with Assistive Technology (CREATE) Symposium today. The yearly competition showcases collaborative work between college engineering students and non-profit rehabilitative organizations supporting those with disabilities to develop innovations that help those with disabilities succeed in the workplace. NYSID is a non-profit membership organization with a 50-year mission of advancing employment and other opportunities for individuals with disabilities and qualified veterans. 

Mechanical engineering students Ayushi Bhattacharjee, Danielle Chiu, Myisha Hassan, and Asmi Shirsat worked with CP Unlimited West Farms Center in the Bronx to redesign the workflow for heat-pressing vinyl designs onto t-shirts for workers with cerebral palsy. A challenging key step in the production called weeding—removing unwanted vinyl pieces from cut designs—requires precise, two-handed work and careful attention to faint cut lines, making it slow, eye-straining, and error-prone. The Cooper team’s project aims to redesign the weeding process into a more accessible, one-handed workflow that reduces strain, improves accuracy, and increases participation and t-shirt production efficiency.     

More News from The Cooper Union

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.