Design case studies

Clarity: A wearable that senses and communicates air pollution data to a user's smartphone. Photos by Noah Berger.

Toastboard: This device reimagines the traditional circuit design and testing tool known as the breadboard.

Knox diagnostics: The company is developing a cheaper and more portable spirometer, which is used for monitoring patients with asthma and other respiratory conditions.

Dash robotics: Small robot kits based on biomimetics. The most popular design, Dash, is modeled after a cockroach, but made of flexible plastic.

Smart Bowl: A device designed for the emerging connected home market, the sensor-equipped bowl keeps track of keys, wallets and other essentials and will alert users' if they walk out the door without something important.

CellScope: An attachment that turns the stock optics on a smartphone into a microscope that can used for field diagnostics. The tool is especially useful in developing world situations.

NASA tensegrity robots: These robots, designed in collaboration with NASA engineers, are inspiring new ways of thinking about the form and function of automated devices.

A smartphone modification that allows deaf users to participate in conference calls by transcribing speech in real time.

Vires Aeronautics: The company is developing a new technology that improves the aerodynamics of flight.

Smart scooters: A new course called CE 186: Design of Cyber-Physical Systems uses scooters as a way to study electric vehicles and the energy grid.