Empowering Students in Medical Device Design: an Interdisciplinary Soft Robotics Course

Experiential learning in biomedical engineering curricula is a critical component to developing graduates who are equipped to contribute to technical design tasks in their careers. This paper presents the development and implementation of an undergraduate and graduate-level soft material robotics design course focused on applications in medical device design. The elective course, offered in a bioengineering department, includes modules on technical topics and hands-on projects relevant to readings, all situated within a human-centered design course. After learning and using first principles governing soft robot design and exploring literature in soft robotics, students propose a new advance in the field in a hands-on design and prototype project. The course described here aims to create a structure to engage students in fabrication and the design approaches taken by practitioners in a specific field, applied here in soft robotics, but applicable to other areas of biomedical engineering. This teaching tips article details the pedagogical tools used to facilitate design and collaboration within the course. Additionally, we aim to highlight ways in which the course creates (1) opportunities to engage undergraduates in design in preparation for capstone courses, (2) outward facing opportunities to connect with practitioners in the field, and (3) the ability to adapt this hands-on experience within a typical lecture structure as well as a hybrid online and in-person offering, thus expanding its utility in bioengineering departments. We reflect on course elements that can inform future design-based course offerings in soft robotics and other design-based multidisciplinary fields in bioengineering.