IDeATe Inclusive Design Studio: From Interview to Product w Physical Computing

Catalog description

This project-based IDeATe interdisciplinary course is structured around the design and fabrication of a novel piece of assistive technology for a local person living with a disability. Students will work on teams to interview their client, ideate prospective interventions, prototype iteratively with client feedback, and finally, build a fully realized functional device to be given to the client for long-term use. The course addresses intermediate/advanced technical topics in the realm of physical computing. Learning is driven in part by project needs, and may include: PCB design, how to specify electronic components, 3D computer-aided design (CAD) for digital fabrication, and how to fabricate more mechanically and electrically robust final products. Each student team is expected to open-source their final design's hardware and software so that it can be shared with an international community of assistive technology makers, and teams are invited to submit their final products to assistive technology design competitions. In addition to the technical material, the course content includes project design elements such as conducting an effective needfinding interview with a client and using prototyping as a means of answering important empirical questions about the project. Students are expected to arrive having already acquired intro-level physical computing skills: they should have experience designing and building physical computing systems that read inputs from multiple types of sensors, do some computation on a microcontroller (such as an Arduino, ESP32, Raspberry Pi Pico, etc.), and drive multiple types of output actuators concurrently. Course Website: https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/62-423