Loveland Magazine

LOVELAND MAGAZINE

News and Events from the Loveland, Ohio Area

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Tag: lazy eye

  • Loveland High School seniors Emily Kiehl and Radu Vasilescu receive $3,000 grant

    Loveland High School seniors Emily Kiehl and Radu Vasilescu receive $3,000 grant

    The CEI Foundation awards grant to teens’ project using virtual reality to treat eye disorder

    Blue Ash, Ohio – The Cincinnati Eye Institute Foundation, the charitable foundation of Cincinnati Eye Institute, has awarded two seniors at Loveland High School a grant of $3,000. The Foundation’s Research Committee, chaired by Robert Sisk, M.D., made this IGNITE grant to fund an innovative treatment for children with amblyopia, also known as lazy eye. This grant will fund additional computer equipment that will allow children to use virtual reality glasses to play games while strengthening eye muscles.

    Emily Kiehl and Radu Vasilescu came up with the idea to use Oculus Rift virtual reality technology to simulate patching one’s eye and playing games filled with perspective and optical depth perspective on the eye needing therapy.

    Kiehl, who was born with amblyopia and was successfully treated for the condition, sees this as a potential treatment method. “Using the VR headset, we believe that children can force their brain to start using both eyes evenly,” Kiehl said.

    “By surpassing 40 plus college-level teams with our high school prototype, we proved our project is worthwhile and has recognized potential.” – Radu Vasilescu

    Kiehl and Vasilescu built a prototype of this design at the University of Cincinnati event “Revolution UC,” a 24-hour, team-based project development competition and won the first place prize awarded by a panel of IT professionals. They invested the winnings from this prize into development of the project.

    “By surpassing 40 plus college-level teams with our high school prototype, we proved our project is worthwhile and has recognized potential,” added Vasilescu.

    Kiehl and Vasilescu previously built a computer from scrap parts and a loaned graphics card. The computers will enable them to expand their research into the effectiveness of this approach.

    Kiehl and Vasilescu presented the idea to The Cincinnati Eye Institute Foundation and were awarded a $3,000 grant which they will use to purchase two high-powered computers needed to run the program. The students previously built a computer from scrap parts and a loaned graphics card. The computers will enable them to expand their research into the effectiveness of this approach.

    “We are happy to award Emily and Radu an IGNITE grant for their forward-thinking and entrepreneurial approach to help children born with amblyopia.” – Patrick Ward

    “We are happy to award Emily and Radu an IGNITE grant for their forward-thinking and entrepreneurial approach to help children born with amblyopia,” said Patrick Ward, president of The Cincinnati Eye Institute Foundation. “We support efforts for new treatments to help eye disorders, and know that this project has the ability to help many young children.”

    The team is hoping to involve students in the Loveland School District, as well as Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in their project to help them test out the technology.

    Both Kiehl and Vasilescu will graduate from Loveland High School this spring and will pursue computer science degrees; Kiehl will attend the University of Cincinnati and Vasilescu will attend Duke University.

    Watch this video where Emily and Radu explain their invention and talk about what it does.

    Also read this story about Emily Kiehl and Radu Vasilescu:

    Loveland High School seniors Emily Kiehl and Radu Vasilescu receive $3,000 grant

    Wildflower House — where women & girls bloom!

  • Young innovators to watch – LHS students win national scholarship competition

    Young innovators to watch – LHS students win national scholarship competition

    “You’re changing people’s lives, you guys.” – CBS science reporter, David Welch Pogue

    by Staff Writer Sam Smith

    Las Vegas – It’s branded as “The Global Stage for Innovation” – and this year, two Loveland High School (LHS) students earned their place at the speaker platform. Seniors Emily Kiehl and Radu Vasilescu’s research project outshined hundreds of national project submissions, and the duo was selected as one of four scholarship-winning teams named “Young Innovators to Watch” by the Consumer Technology Association.

    The MC for the presentation was TV science presenter, writer and CBS science reporter, David Welch Pogue who asked questions to Kiehl and Vasilescu. Pogue proclaimed, “You’re changing people’s lives, you guys.”

    Kiehl and Vasilescu earned the opportunity to present their winning project at the 2018 Consumer Technology Association’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), on January 11 in Las Vegas. The CES is an annual gathering of the world’s business leaders and pioneering thinkers, with more than 184,000 in attendance. Lenovo flew Keihl and Vasilesciu to the convention in Nevada and received a $1000 check.

    “Project Purple,” Kiehl and Vasilescu’s winning project, proposes a Virtual Reality treatment for Amblyopia, a medical condition that happens when the vision in one eye is reduced because the eye and the brain are not working properly.

    “This was personal to my family,” explained Kiehl, who suffers from Amblyopia. “I’ve spent a lot of my years in doctors’ offices learning about [it].”

    Watch the two present, starting at +2:08:

     

    Vasilescu and Keihl’s presentation audience

    Kiehl explained her medical situation to Vasilescu when the two students were working as lab partners during a freshman biology class. Kiehl had just undergone a recent eye surgery.

    “Our lab was on cells, and we were tinting the cells purple and learning about them under a microscope,” said Vasilescu. “Suddenly Emily looked up, stared me dead in the eye and said, ‘Is that purple?’ That was the first time she ever saw the color purple.”

    Fast forward a couple of years, and Project Purple was born at the University of Cincinnati’s RevolutionUC Hackathon, in April 2017. At the event, UC students formed over 40 teams and spent 24 hours competitively coding and developing projects.

    “We won first place overall at that hackathon with the prototype for Project Purple,” said Vasilescu. “That gave us the motivation to continue.” Out of 40 college teams, the high school project took home 1st place for having the most potential and being the most creative.

    Booths at CES

    As national scholarship winners, Vasilescu and Kiehl plan to use the scholarship money to purchase resources to continue their Virtual Reality research on real patients. After finalizing the prototype, they are seeking a couple of willing participants for their planned longitudinal case-study.

    “It is great to see students highly engaged in thinking about ways to solve problems,” said LHS teacher Phil Marchal, who mentors the students in their independent study course and supports their research and development. “Their project takes a relatively new technology and proposes a solution that potentially could make the lives of individuals better. What a neat learning experience.”

    To learn more about Project Purple, please visit http://raduvasilescu.com/project-purple/

    Learn more about the CES at https://www.ces.tech/

    Radu Vasilescu’s website: http://raduvasilescu.com

    Emily Kiehl’s website: https://emilydkiehl.weebly.com

    LHS Senior, Emily Keihl
    LHS Senior, Radu Vasilescu (Photo by Sam Smith)