Assistive Technology Challenge

«Assistive Technology Challenge» is a hands-on project-based course introducing students to assistive technologies, the principles of user-centered design and user evaluation, project management, as well as basic engineering tools.

In groups of four, students will work together with a person with disability (challenger) to develop and evaluate a personal technical solution to one of their individual daily life challenges. The course is inspired by and follows a similar format as the hackathon) organized by the association HackaHealth (involving current and previous RELab members) and held yearly at the ETH Student Project House (external pagehttps://www.hackahealth.ch/hackathon-zurichcall_made). The goal is to make a positive impact on the independence of the challenger.

Enrolment

For Health Sciences and Technology master students:
When enrolling to the course on myStudies, students will be automatically put on the waiting list. In parallel, you will need to fill in a survey https://evaluation-app1.let.ethz.ch/atchallenge_fs24. Upon acceptance to the course, we will send you an email for confirmation.

For students from other departments than D-HEST:
If you’re interested in taking this course, please write an email directly to Prof. Gassert (). Note that students enrolled to the Master in Health Science and Technology Master with a Major in Rehabilitation and Inclusion will be given priority.

Challenges

The description of this year’s challenges will be made available here soon.

The groups and challenge allocation will be preassigned by us based on your skills and interest stated in the enrolment survey (see above). Individual changes/switches of the assigned group/challenge can be discussed upon request and justification.

Office hours

During the office hours, there will be no guided lecture sessions, but the teaching assistants will be available for your questions. Every two weeks there will be a mandatory progress meeting between you and your teaching assistant to update on the state of your project and to discuss the deliverables of that week.

Access to makerspace facilities

In order to work on your prototypes, you will have access to an equipped makerspace (e.g., basic and power tools, soldering stations, lasercutters, …) at the LEO building during the following time slots:

• Monday morning, 8-12 (during regular lecture hours from week 5 onwards)
• Monday afternoon, 13-18 (whole semester)
• Tuesday afternoon, 13-18 (whole semester)

In addition, you will get 24h-access to a 3D printer at the LEO building.

Prerequisites

Enrolment in Master Health Sciences and Technology. German is not mandatory but is beneficial as some of the challengers might not speak English.

Lecture Material

All material related to the course will be made available on Moodle.