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JEFF DUSEK: My
name is Jeff Dusek.

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I am a course two
Ph.D. candidate.

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My involvement in the class is
I'm actually a mentor for two

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of the student project teams.

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So Sruthi is on one of the
teams-- team Beverly Ann.

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I also worked with team Art.

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And I took this course
last year and found it

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to be an incredible experience.

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I have an interest in
assistive technology

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that stems from
a grandmother who

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was in a wheelchair growing up.

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And when I was
asked to be involved

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in the course this
year, I was really

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excited to be involved again
and in a mentor capacity

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was really a great
privilege in my opinion.

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SRUTHI NURAYANAN: My
name is Sruthi Nurayanan.

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I'm course six
two, which is ECS.

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And in this class
this year, I was

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working with Beverly Ann
on a grip sensor that

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would help her detect when
her grip was slipping when she

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was picking up certain objects.

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So I was interested in building
some sort of technology that

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would actually go to
someone and help them.

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I hadn't really done
that before in a class.

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And this class was, I guess,
pretty well advertised.

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And I was interested in sort of
going forth and just building

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something, even if it
was just for one person.

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And so that's why I
decided to take it.

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In terms of how my
expectations for the class

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actually correlated with
what the class was like,

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I think that in
some circumstances

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it really did end up
being what I expected.

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I got to build something,
which is really exciting.

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I learned a lot about
circuitry and fields

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I'd never known
anything about before

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but was really interested in.

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And all of that
was really what I

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wanted to get out of the class,
as well as the joy from being

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able to make someone something
that they're going to use

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and that will help them.

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And so that made
me really happy.

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What I didn't think I would
get out of this class--

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but I was surprised
to-- was sort

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of the able to interact with
people with disabilities

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and understand how they
interact with the world

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and how assistive technology
can really help someone,

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even if it's just
in a very small way.

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So I learned a lot about that.

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And I'm glad I took
the class for it.

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JEFF DUSEK: Yeah.

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So as far as my
expectations for the course,

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one thing I really realized
taking this last year

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is that this class and design--
and iterative design in general

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really force you to
learn skill sets that

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might not be something
that you come in with.

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So last year we worked on
kind of a robotic arm project.

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I'm a mechanical engineer.

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And so some of the
electronics and the coding

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were not really in my
wheel house, if you will.

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So this year I was kind of the
mech-E person of the staff.

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So what I was hoping was to
be able to help teams that

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needed a little bit more
mechanical design, who maybe

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come from backgrounds in
electrical engineering

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or computer science and stuff,
that might not have that skill

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set.

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And I think maybe
we pulled that off--

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would say you have to hear
from the teams about that one.

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SRUTHI NURAYANAN:
So when we have

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to collaborate with
our client, a lot of it

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was just figuring out what
would help her out the most.

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Because she came and
told us immediately.

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She was, like, I
have this disease.

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And I have bad
grip because of it.

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And so we had to spend a
long time thinking about, OK,

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what does that mean?

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What parts of her hand
does she grip with?

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When does her grip slip?

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Why does it slip?

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What can we do to
prevent it from slipping?

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What device could we
even possibly make?

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And so a lot of
the time was just

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spent with her talking with
her about her experiences

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with her disease and sort of
figuring out very, very slowly

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what would actually help her.

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And then once we were
able to get to that point,

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it sort of snowballed
from there.

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We were, like, OK.

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We actually know what
the problem is now.

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So we can make this device.

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And then it was just
build, build, build.

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And then we got it
done and it worked.

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So for other students
or engineers who

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want to collaborate with
clients with disabilities,

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I think that it's a really
valuable experience,

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and you should
definitely go for it.

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I learned a lot and was
able to help someone.

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And I think that in itself
made me really happy.

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But in terms of things
to keep in mind,

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the client comes first.

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And you have to always
remember that you

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are solving their
problem, not what

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you think their problem is.

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And we had to spend
a really long time

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actually getting to the
root of her problem, which

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is why I think in the
end our product worked.

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So definitely listen
to the client.

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Try to get as much
critical feedback from them

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as possible, even though
sometimes that's hard.

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Because they're just happy
that you're there helping them,

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even if you're not making
them the best thing that

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you possibly could.

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And so definitely
listen to your client

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would be the advice
I would give.

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So I think the group
work went really well.

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We were able to split it pretty
nicely into different sections

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of work.

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In the beginning we were
all pretty much just

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talking with Beverly Ann
a lot about her disease

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and her problem.

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But once we were able
to analyze the problem,

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we were able to pick
up niches of the design

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that we were able to
split up pretty evenly

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and work on and then
combine in the end.

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I think definitely figuring out
how to split the work evenly

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is the hardest part.

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But once we were able to do
that, it went really smoothly.

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I would say for our team
in particular, none of us

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had any circuitry
experience coming in.

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And we were making
a device that was

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going to stay on
her at all times,

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and it definitely required
a lot of circuitry.

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So the biggest problem
was just figuring out

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what kind of technology we
even had available to use

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and how we could use
that to our advantage,

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learning about how
circuits worked,

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even at like a very basic level.

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All of that was just
so foreign to us.

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And so that was definitely
the hardest part to get past.

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JEFF DUSEK: Yeah,
so as a mentor I

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might have a slightly
different perspective

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on the teaching of the course.

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And I think a few things
are really important.

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I would say as far as design
and design for our client,

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there's really two things.

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I would say that
making sure that you

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have a really good
contextual inquiry--

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so really understand your client
and understand the problem.

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I think that's one thing
that this course does

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that's a little different
from most design courses.

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You're designing
for a single person.

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And so you really get to
interact with that person

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and understand them and
understand their problem.

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And it's really
important to do that.

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And that's kind of the starting
point for everything you do.

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And so you really need to
get that contextual inquiry.

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And the second thing that I
learned taking the course,

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but then also working
with the teams this year,

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is just the value
of iterative design

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and prototypes-- no
matter what fidelity they

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are, so even paper things
or cardboard things.

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Sruthi's team with
Beverly Ann-- they

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worked with a grip project.

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And so they used things
like putty to kind of map

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where the hand grips in
particular and those sort

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of things.

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And I think that's really
valuable-- is making

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use of even kind of
non-technical prototyping

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but to really better
understand the design space.

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SRUTHI NURAYANAN: For the
professors and educators

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for this course who are going
to teach it in the future,

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I think that the thing most
important for them to remember

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is that I think the students
all have really good intentions

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but don't necessarily
know how to act on them.

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Like in our case, we
were just really lost

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with some of the
electrical stuff

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until we were able
to find resources

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that were able to help us.

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And so I think the one thing
they need to keep in mind

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is that we definitely are very
lost in some of the things

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we have to learn how to do.

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And so obtaining as many
resources as possible

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is very useful for
us down the road.

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So for example, in
our case, we were

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able to use the
Cypress Engineering

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Lab, which has a lot of
resources for electrical device

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development.

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But we didn't know about
it until mid November.

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So until then we were
sort of floundering.

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And eventually we were
able to get into the lab

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and get a lot of work done,
but knowing that earlier

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would have been helpful.

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And so just find and exploit
all the resources you can get,

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because they all
pay off in the end.

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Take this class.

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I really, really enjoyed it.

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It's something that I
haven't gotten out of a class

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before, because this
actually went to someone.

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It wasn't just something
that I built and then dropped

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at the end of the class.

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It is actually going
to help someone live

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their life in a better way.

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And that's just
incredibly rewarding.