Designing Delight

How IDeATe Physical Computing Class Builds for Real Lives

At Carnegie Mellon, students are used to building bold, imaginative projects. But in a new IDeATe course, those projects aren’t just for a grade — they’re for a person. In Advanced Physical Computing last fall, five students designed musical devices for two young clients at the Children’s Home of Pittsburgh. The semester-long collaboration blended engineering, empathy, and a lot of prototyping, resulting in two completely custom creations bespoke to the needs, interests, and bodies of the clients.

For Associate Teaching Professor Robert Zacharias, who launched the course in Fall 2025, it’s a culmination of years of imagining how assistive technology fits into the maker classroom. For years, Zacharias has taught a class called Intro to Physical Computing, which challenges students to work with a client over a short period of time. But in this new iteration with experienced students and expanded class time, he was able to emphasize the heart of the project: approaching both physical and software design with extreme care for the people involved.

“These products aren’t intended to be universally usable — they’re not meant for anything beyond these particular clients’ particular needs,” he said. “But for that one person, making one simple task easier or more engaging can make a big difference, and that’s what I wanted my students to keep in mind as they moved through the process.”

From Tools to Touchpoints

The project kicked off at the beginning of the fall semester, when the class divided into two teams, meeting with their clients at the Children’s Home as well as parents and staff who were familiar with the clients’ personalities and needs. From there, students entered a fast-paced ideation process, producing low-fidelity prototypes, refining ideas based on feedback, and ultimately building custom devices.

In interviews with Henry, a 17-year-old boy, it became clear that music was an important part of his life. He’s especially good with buttons and enjoys playing the bongos alongside his family. That inspired his team — Aren Davey, a senior studying computer science and fine arts, College of Engineering junior Nora Xi, and College of Fine Arts masters student Hengyue Zhao — to prototype a device they called the Music Maker.

They brought to life a large-button interface that allowed Henry to play guitar chords, piano notes, and other sound effects. The team experimented with shape, color, and spacing to fit their client’s needs. They modified buttons to avoid colors that might clash with his existing communication device. Ultimately, they landed on a semicircular layout with a dark background and light-up LEDs.

“Our client wraps his whole hand around a button and pulls it together, so our buttons aren’t flush to the device,” Davey explained. “This allows him to squeeze the buttons in order to activate them — they’re specially designed for his specific style of movement.”

A Swift Response

Meanwhile, the second team had a superstar inspiration: Taylor Swift. Determined to build their client a game that allowed her to rock out with her favorite artist, College of Engineering sophomore Sylvia Ker and College of Fine Arts masters student Zimeng Ma drew up plans for a keyboard that plays music in sync with visual cues.

Allie, who is 10 years old, has limited arm mobility and verbal communication. But most importantly, she enjoys playing alongside others. It was this excitement about collaboration that inspired her team to create a two-player device, so that friends and family could participate alongside their client.

One side, designed for Allie, has three large keys that are easy to see and move. The other side looks more like a traditional keyboard, and operates at a faster pace that challenges the second player.

“We wanted it to be fun for both players, not just our client,” Ker explained.

The team explored different materials and methods of lighting, verifying that the game was sturdy and easy to see. They added a way to switch between single-player and two-player modes, and to adjust the volume. They even double checked which Swift songs were Allie’s favorites, and programmed their device with tunes that brought the most joy.

Learning that Lasts

For Zacharias, the class is part technical lab, part empathy engine. “Yes, we want students to learn how to solder, prototype, and code,” he said. “But more importantly, I want them to walk away with the experience of working with somebody and actually learning their needs. That’s the more durable lesson that they’ll carry with them in their life.”

The course exemplifies IDeATe’s approach to creative technology — learning by making, failing, and iterating — guided by real-world context and interdisciplinary collaboration. Students came in with different backgrounds and pooled their skills to make something none of them could have built alone.

That collaborative spirit showed during the final critique, where both teams shared not just their working prototypes, but the design challenges, ethical questions, and surprises along the way. In the final stretch, both teams focused on refinement; then, after one last week of improvements, they delivered their devices to their clients at the Children’s Home.

“The final handoffs went great!” Zacharias said. “Henry and Allie were so excited to get their devices to take home with them, and the students got to see the fruition of their long efforts. This experience was really positive for everyone who participated, including the professional caregiving staff at the Children's Home, the students, and of course the clients and their families. I'm excited to see what thoughtful and interesting projects next semester's students will come up with!”

This fall, Zacharias will teach the course again, under a new name: 62-423 Inclusive Design Studio: From Interview to Product with Physical Computing. There are still seats available in the course, and students from all disciplines who have had any previous Arduino/microcontroller experience are welcome to register.