Description: Overall 20% of the world's population has a disability. However, in most parts of the world, disabled people's access needs are not adequately met. Technology itself will not fix this (as it is a societal problem!); however, there are ways to co-create new technologies which can be helpful. In this course, students will connect closely with disabled experts, care partners, and healthcare workers to engage in the design and prototyping of new systems to address real-world problems. Students will explore current research in disabled-led design, accessibility, robotics, and human-robot interaction, and gain experience using this perspective to address important problems in unique ways.
Background knowledge: Students should have a deep interest in humans and human-centered accessibility. This course is very interactive and involves communicating with other people -- your classmates as well as community members (e.g., disabled people, care partners, and healthcare workers). This course will involve multidisciplinary, team-based projects and will include design thinking, prototyping, and software development. Students with backgrounds in engineering should be comfortable with building and experimenting within their area of expertise. (e.g., CSE students should be experienced in software development, MAE students in rapid prototyping, etc.). Students with backgrounds in the humanities, arts, social sciences, or biomedical/clinical fields should be comfortable with user-centered design. All students should be comfortable reading scientific papers, and working with students and community members from a diverse set of backgrounds.
Misc notes: 1) It is absolutely ok if you are new to robotics / accessibility / healthcare / human-centered research / etc! Please do not let the title of the course prevent you from taking it. My goal is to make this course inclusive to students with a range of backgrounds from across the university.
2) This class will not be covering topics related to surgical robotics, EHR data mining, or medical imaging. If those are your interests, check out a range of excellent courses offered by the Department of Surgery, MAE, ECE, Biomedical Informatics, etc.
2) This class will not be covering topics related to surgical robotics, EHR data mining, or medical imaging. If those are your interests, check out a range of excellent courses offered by the Department of Surgery, MAE, ECE, Biomedical Informatics, etc.
Final project highlights from prior years of the course: