Perspectives in Assistive Technology is a Winter Quarter Stanford course - completing its nineteenth year - that explores the design, development, and use of assistive technology that benefits people with disabilities and older adults. It consists of semi-weekly in-person discussions; lectures by notable professionals, clinicians, and assistive technology users; a tour of an accessible inclusive playground; student project presentations and demonstrations; and an Assistive Technology Faire. Students pursue team-based projects that address real challenges faced by people with disabilities and older adults living in the local community. Check out the course website.

End of the Quarter - The Winter 2025 course has come to an end. Week 10 saw the student teams' end-of-term presentations and prorject demonstrations. All end-of term reports have been read,and reviewed. Students' Individual Reflections have been accepted and the grades have been duly entered. Here are anonymous student contributions to Cardinal Course Student Survey administered by the Haas Center for Public Service. These are responses to the question: What did you find valuable about the community engaged experience or project?

• Being able to connect and engage with people from outside the community as well being able to bring my own experiences and perspectives to the class
• Being able to help members of the community.
• Being able to make an actual impact for actual people.
• Being able to see that our creation was going to be of use to another person.
• Community-based insights and design
• Designing for specific needs.
• Getting to work on a meaningful project where I saw the benefit that the product brought to the community.
• Helping someone
• I appreciated the direct impact this class afforded.
• I found that the chance to make someone’s life better was extremely valuable.
• I found the ability to tell others I helped someone in need is very valuable.
• I got to hear the actual voice.
• Interacting with the students.
• Interaction with user
• Interviews and analysis of the interview
• It is awesome to be able to work with someone in the community and make something that will be useful for them.
• It was nice to complete a project with impact.
• It was very valuable to work with the community member, receive their feedback, and ultimately create a prototype that they were very pleased with.
• Just listening and empathizing with our community partner through our meetings.
• Meeting people in the community
• Teamwork
• The back and forth feedback between our project partner was the most valuable for our project.
• The community engagement motivated me work on the project. I enjoy engineering projects in the real world.
• Very valuable to create something that actually had a measured impact on someone’s life
• Was very cool to actually communicate with the person we would be making a product for.