Winter Quarter 2013

David L. Jaffe, MS and Professor Drew Nelson Tuesdays & Thursdays   4:15pm - 5:30pm Thornton Center - Classroom 110

Students' Comments - Winter 2012

In response to the question: Why do you want to take this course?

I want to take the course because it is very unique in that it allows all students to learn about an issue and actually design and create a solution for it. My ideal career would involve developing medical devices, and this course allows me to experience the process in a quarter. Also, the class works toward social good and has the intention of helping the community.

I want to work on an assistive technology project, and this class seems like it would mesh really well with ME 113.

The most important reason for me to take this course is to see how I can apply my education to make real contributions. Another reason is to develop a better understanding and perspective to address problems faced by people with disabilities. I believe this course will help me learn how to apply user feedback to the design process in Assistive Technology.

I think this course will offer me valuable design experience, while getting to work on a solution that I can easily see impacting someone's life in a positive way.

I want to explore how to bring technology benefits to people with visual impairments.

I am very passionate about medical devices for those in need.

I want to apply my knowledge in design and mechatronics to build something useful that will help people.

I want to help out those who have disabilities.

I am interested in biomedical devices.

I am really interested in designing useful products for individuals with disabilities and learning more about assistive technology.

I am really interested in assistive technology in general. I've always wanted to design a product that would help my younger brother (who is autistic) communicate, so this course is directly relevant to my interests and skills.

I have always been interested in assistive technologies. I did research on an assistive mobility device as an undergraduate and want to explore something more in this area.

I am passionate about helping the underserved obtain products or services that deliver performance.

I am interested in learning more about assistive technology and creating useful devices.

I want to work on a cool medtech problem that allows me to apply my engineering skills.

As a biomechanical engineering major with deep interest in doing non-profit work, I thought the class is perfect for allowing me to hone my design skills, all while doing good.

I would like to gain design experience in products that have a large impact.

From a student's Hass Center Public Service Honor Society application:

I found it immensely powerful to be able to explore the challenges associated with designing and using assistive technologies to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

From students' course comments:

In response to the question: How well did the course or lectures meet your expectations?

The course far exceeded my expectations. The passion from the teaching staff and the guest lecturers has encouraged me to even consider rehab engineering as a career to oursue. I knew I could learn a lot from the class, but I didn't expect to be able to obtain this life-changing of a perspective.

Course did exactly what I thought

Project aspect was great.

I really enjoyed the lectures.

The course very well met my expectations. I enjoyed and appreciated the variety in lectures. I especially enjoyed the field trips.

Very well (better than I expected)

They met my expectations.

In response to the question: Why did you decide to work on a project?

I decided to work on a project because I really appreciate the opportunity to work with the benefactors of our products / projects. For me, this kind of user-centric approach has been highly rewarding.

I was excited by the different projects pitches and was eager to challenge myself and see what I could come up with.

In response to the question: What aspects of the course did you particularly like?

Working with project suggestors

The various product pitches and the presentations

The hands-on project collaborating with community members

Being able to work on a hands-on project in the PRL

Seeing student projects and listening to the amazing folks who lectured

The field trips. I felt that I learned the most when I actually got to see the products used in actual hospitals, labs, etc.

Broadened {my} perspective of issues related to accessibility, and cognizance of some of the struggles and concerns people have as a result of disability.

I liked the project presentations and feedback.

In response to the query: Rate the value of the pre-lecture discussions.

I personally learned a lot from the pre-lecture slides, mainly because I am relatively new to assistive technology.

"Who is Disabled?" was good / helps with understanding the space.

I enjoyed hearing you speak about this because it made me question my pre-conceptions on the topic.

I felt there was a lot of value in these pre-lecture items because they engaged the audience and got them thinking about the material.

They were very helpful and put things in perspective

In response to the item: Comment on lectures or tours that were especially successful in helping you understand the broad scope of assistive technology.

David L. Jaffe, MS - Course Overview & Introduction to Assistive Technology

Provided a lot of valuable information, perspectives

Project Pitches

Great connection with companies and project pitchers

Gayle Curtis - Need Finding for Assistive Technologies

Will definitely help my future as a prosthetics R&D engineer

Need-finding lecture was particularly helpful

Jacon Chun, MPT, SCS, ATC, CSCS - Assistive Technology in Patient Care: Anti-Gravity Treadmill in Rehabilitation and Training

Anti-gravity treadmill presentation {was} interesting.

Really interesting! Liked how he focused on just one product thoroughly.

Vivian T. Wong, Nicole B. Torcolini, and Aubrie Lee - Perspectives of Stanford Students with a Disability

{This lecture} gave me a lot of respect for these fellow class mates.

I really enjoyed the lecture that included disabled students in which they shared very personal feedback / ideas on their situations.

Great - always important to hear other people's perspectives

I felt this lecture was especially insightful. Hearing from individuals who benefit from and have a need for assistive technology is especially intriguing to listen to. I really appreciated the perspective from the students who spoke and valued their insights.

Helped me understand the difficulties facing people I know.

Really liked students reflecting on their experiences.

I enjoyed the guest lectures especially fellow students.

Hilary Douglas - Partnership and Prototypes: Learning with the Community

Really interesting! This lecture was pretty engaging.

Allison M. Okamura, PhD & David L. Jaffe, MS - Rehabilitation Robotics

Allison Okamura's lecture was one of my three favorite class sessions.

Jessica Rose, PhD & Adam Sheppard, BS, MM, MA - Tour of Motion & Gait Analysis Lab

FANTASTIC - really makes concepts hit home.

Teri A. Adams, JD - You Get No Extra Points for Suffering

Moving personal experience

Bob Bauer, Henry Evans, and PR2 - Tour of Willow Garage

FANTASTIC - really makes concepts hit home.

Willow was awesome! (2 comments)

Willow Garage was one of my three favorite class sessions.

The tour of Willow Garage was awesome - very interactive and interesting. It was cool to see how assistive technology can be brought to life, and who doesn't love robots?

Graham H. Creasey, MD, FRCSEd, Shari Dekelboum, OTR/L, ATP; Karen Parecki, OTR/L, ATP; Evi Klein, MA, CCC-SLP, ATP; and Debbie J. Pitsch, MPT, GCS, CBIS, ATP - Tour of VA Spinal Cord Injury Center and Assistive Technology Lab

VA was one of my three favorite class sessions.

Great! I learned a lot from that tour. I had fun trying out all the different assistive technologies.

The tour of the VA was also really cool. I especially enjoyed hearing from the man who had been recently been in an accident at the beach. It was such a special opportunity to hear his insights and story.

The VA tour was amazing.

Lots of technology to see

I liked the tour to the VA.

Ralf Hotchkiss - Wheelchair Fabrication in Developing Countries

Interesting topic. I wished he told more interesting stories and showed more pictures though.

Tours

Tours were very useful.

Tours were great!

Tours were most interesting.

Comments on multiple lectures

Excellent speakers, dynamic voice / lecture, involved audience somehow

Some of the lectures were excellent.

I really enjoyed each lecture and found the range of topics to be fascinating. Each lecture was different, so I was excited {with} each lecture to see what we could learn and discuss. I also loved the field trips.

Additional comments:

I just want to thank you, once again, for organizing the course. Your passion for assistive technology really comes through, and that to me, was very uplifting and inspiring.

The {emailed} articles were cool.

It's obvious you put in a lot of time to organize and schedule relevant speakers.

I really appreciated your weekly {emailed} updates and articles. I felt like it was an "extra gift".

I feel that you did a great job locating interesting people to speak and I appreciated listening to them.

I liked the {emailed} updates, so I think they were helpful.

{Quality and choice of suggested projects} Great! a lot of choices

I loved opening the lectures up to questions to facilitate student engagement.

I appreciated the continued support and encouragement from Dave.

I loved the course!

{The pre-lecture discussions, presentations, and tours} were all helpful in some way to better understand disabilities and assistive technologies, and the culture that surrounds them. The takeaway from this class is that disabilities are expensive, and they come in all shapes and sizes, so there is no one solution that fits all solutions.

From students' individual reflections:

Overall I found this course to be a worthwhile experience. I have a new perspective on assistive devices.

In many ways, this class changes my life. As a fantastic introduction into assistive technology, it has really encouraged me to pursue rehabilitation engineering as a career. I was deeply inspired by the lecturers and the community members in the class. Their palpable passion for the field has really empowered my conviction in engineering. As an engineering student, I was never able to derive as much fulfillment from my work as I was able to derive from working on my project for the class. At the end of the day, I was always tremendously grateful for having so many people supporting me. I will definitely recommend the class to my friends and classmates. This class has been an invaluable stepping-stone for my future career in assistive technology. Not only was I able to learn many valuable lessons from the class, I also got invigorated by the wonderful people and ideas that the course introduced me to.

I’m very glad I took this course. It offered many different viewpoints and reminded me why I became an engineer. It showed me the impact engineers can make on the quality of life that many people with disabilities are seeking.

Even though my intended focus was mental disabilities, it was an enlightening and humbling experience to hear the different guest lecturers and community members share their physical disabilities. The panel where students with disabilities came in and talked about accessibility on campus was quite eye-opening and made me began to realize how much I was taking for granted.

Overall, I have really enjoyed my participation in this class and the opportunity provided for me to do hands on work as a freshman at Stanford. I learned about the various steps of the design process, and the importance of iteration, prototyping, and testing repeatedly.

Overall I leave the class with an increased awareness of what it means to be “disabled,” and the varied challenges people face.

People with disabilities are people first and foremost and designing with this in mind will produce the best results for assistive technology development. Human-centric design is something I have learned to appreciate through this class. A design or product is nothing if no one wants to use it or if it fails to connect with the people it serves. Through this class, I have gained valuable insight on people with disabilities that will allow me to design more effectively going forward working with my future projects. Thanks for a great quarter Dave!

I learned a great deal about effective design through the in-class lectures, the field trips, and by working on my project. I gained many valuable insights about assistive technologies and the potential they have to dramatically improve the lives of the users for whom they are built. Although frustrating at times, the challenges I was faced with helped me grow and learn. I have thoroughly enjoyed the lectures, and have gained many insights about assistive technologies that I applied to my project and will apply moving forward in the future. This class has also given me the opportunity to flex my design thinking and skills. The experiences I have had with ENGR 110 have all been rewarding, and I am so happy to have partaken in this course.

I thoroughly enjoyed the course. It was quite relevant to my future plans as a prosthetic device designer, and the "people first" mentality is one that we seem to miss far too often in today's world - I was very glad to learn methods for actually doing so.

I would definitely recommend this class to my peers looking to do something hands on in the area of design. One of the greatest aspects of this class is being able to work directly with a company partner. This both provides real world experience and gives the project a real possibility of being manufactured and reaching the market. Personally, I feel as though I have grown more significantly through this class than through any other I have taken thus far at Stanford.

The tours were especially amazing because it was exciting to see the reality of completed and marketed assistive technology that is having such a powerful impact on people’s lives.

From students' online course evaluations:

Dave is good. He is working hard to make the class better. He has integrated many things into the class that make it fun such as the cookies.

Class was great! Lecturers were great!

Great class and professor's and lecturer's knowledge and passion of the subjects inspires!

The course is great and is doing a lot of good. It is very rewarding to have worked on a project that actually helped someone. The tours were very relevant and great, well done. The guest speakers had insightful perspectives and did a lot to further knowledge about disabilities.

From students' and community members' emails:

I think that no other class I took at Stanford changed my thinking as much as yours. Probably because you are so inclusive and believe that anyone who cares about this space can have an impact - regardless if they are an engineer or not.

The time I spent doing the research for my projects in your course and in my independent study with you certainly helped me have a point of view for [my current consulting job], and made me a much more confident designer since I had already done hours of ethnography on this subject.

Previous years' comments

2011  2010  2009  2008