Robotic devices, thinking big

What would you do with $71 million? DARPA decided it would develop better prosthetic arms for amputees. The neat thing is that they are actually doing a good job with taxpayers' money. Technologies from the project are already making it into real-life use. The scope of the undertaking is amazing, from neuroscience to mechatronics to battery design, and the list goes on. In a stroke of 21st-century genius, engineers at Johns Hopkins even created a version of (air) Guitar Hero to help users gain proficiency with their new prostheses.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan09/7105
Now students can think big too. WPI announced the new topic for the Robotics Innovation Competition and Conference, which is "Quality of Life." Instead of designing robots for the sake of designing robots (which I am sometimes guilty of), this is motivation for making useful robots. Maybe my students will come up with some ideas?
http://ricc.wpi.edu/events.html