Perspectives is the newsletter of the Stanford course,
Perspectives in Assistive Technology.

Pre-Summer Update

This newsletter issue summaries the recent academic year's course
and describes future plans.

Pre-Summer Update

Greetings to members of the Stanford's Assistive Technology course community,

As Summer approaches, I hope you are all doing well. I have wrapped up the seventeenth season of my Assistive Technology course, including reading and marking up students' end-of-term reports, submitting grades, and creating a few slideshows posted on the course website. The course was completely in-person this year except for a movie screening & discussion by Zoom, Here is my report on what has happened since the end of the course in mid-March and my thoughts for the future.

Review of this past academic year's course

Thanks - First, I would like to thank everybody who participated in the course as a student, a guest lecturer, an Assistive Technology Faire vendor, a project partner, or a community member. Your interest and contributions are very much appreciated.

Students - This past academic year, the course enrolled 40, 36 worked on 9 team and 2 individual projects. Here is a slideshow of their projects and some photographs of various course activities. Team DUG's project - Communication Aid for Nathan - has been selected as a finalist in RESNA's Student Design Challenge! Two team members will present their project in New Orleans in July.

Comments - The course went extremely well as reported in the students' comments and Individual Reflections (95 pages).

Plans for next year's course

Activities - In-person course activities to be pursued next year include: team projects, community attendance in class sessions, field trips, in-person Assistive Technology Faire, movie night, and most importantly, chocolate chip cookies.

Classroom - I hope that the classroom I have used in 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023 - Lathrop 282 - will once again be assigned to my course. The room's large size and moveable chairs & tables allow it to be easily repurposed for specific events and is more accessible for wheelchair users.

Schedule - I plan to follow my standard course strategy of inviting guest lecturers to present in class sessions. I do not anticipate many new presenters. Contacting them, getting their available dates, and scheduling the class sessions will occur over the next several months.

Project solicitations

In preparation for the upcoming Winter Quarter course offering, I would like to begin to solicit projects suggestions from community members now. Here are some project criteria to consider:

1. Team project suggestions must address a real challenge experienced by an individual with a disability or older adult who lives in the local community. The problem or struggle must be one that is not adequately served by existing commercial products. (Perform an internet search to verify this.) It is important to identify and describe the challenge rather than imagine a solution.
2. The scale and complexity of the project must be such that it could be pursued by a team of three or four students in the 10-week quarter, resulting in a fabricated functional prototype.
3. Refer to Project Requirements webpage for more detailed information.

Here is an example suitable project suggestion designed to guide your project suggestion thinking:

Please contact me with your ideas, questions, comments, and project suggestions - or just to say hello. Please continue to stay safe & healthy.

Dave Jaffe - Course Instructor