WILLIAM LI: So the class was started in 2011.
That was the first time it was offered
in the fall semester of 2011.
It was founded by Professor Seth Teller, who
has done a lot of work over the past couple of decades,
particularly in computer vision and in robotics.
And over time I think he saw that a lot of the work that he
was doing could also be applicable to assistive
technology or technologies that can
help people with disabilities live more independently
or help them in their day-to-day lives.
So I think over the past maybe decade
or so, he's been involved in a lot of course creation
and creating robotics courses and other undergraduate
courses in electrical engineering, computer science.
And I think that this class was in a lot
of ways kind of an extension to that to some extent,
focused on assistive technology.
Over the years, I think Seth had a chance
to work in assistive technology in research projects
and then interact a lot with people with disabilities
in the Cambridge area or the Boston area
and really get a sense of the kinds of practical challenges
that they face and how technology could help.
So that really I think was the motivation
for starting the class, trying to work
with this group of people and also to tap
into the interest of undergraduate students
to work on service learning projects
or to apply their design and engineering skills to something
meaningful.
So he taught this class of the past three years,
and we're fortunate to be teaching it this fall.
GRACE TEO: In terms of departmental support
for the class, so because Professor Teller was part
of the electrical engineering and computer science
department at MIT, that's mainly where it has been housed
for the last three and this year as well-- so four years--
going forward, we're actually looking
to cross list a class between electrical engineering
and computer science, mechanical engineering,
as well as health sciences and technology.
And so I would say that when it was housed
within electrical engineering and computer science,
we had a lot of computer science students come to us.
And so a lot of the other projects
ended up being software-related projects,
because that was their skill set,
and that's what they were comfortable with.
But we've also seen that a lot of assistive technology
requires hardware design as well, and so that's
why we're bringing in mechanical engineering
support for the class.
And as for health sciences and technology, their role at MIT
is really to serve as this integrated
force between different facets of engineering
and the medical community.
And so what we're hoping to do next year with HSTS, Health
Science and Technology Support, is
to bring in occupational therapists into the class
as well to help the students with their projects.
So yeah.
Just in thinking about the different skill sets that
go into the projects, we do think software, hardware,
and then being able to interface with the health side of things
is very important.