Work in progress - Interdisciplinary design of assistive technology for the third world

Successful design is usually a collaboration of individuals from more than one discipline. To address this important future work environment, student interdisciplinary design projects were created. For the past several years, teams of students from the first year Engineering Design Graphics course in the College of Engineering and students from the second year Industrial Design Studio in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies have teamed together to pursue design-build projects. However, there has heretofore been no effort to assess the effectiveness of this collaboration nor have there been any projects addressing significant human needs particularly in a global context. This semester the focus of the interdisciplinary project was on assistive technology applicable in third world countries. This work was an opportunity to assess quantitative and qualitative differences in process and products of homogeneous and interdisciplinary teams as well as the impact of human centered design projects.