Alex Breton | Mechanical Engineer

  2.739 was one of the most interesting classes of my MIT career. Unlike my previous classes that were mostly or solely engineering students, PDD was a course out of the Sloan Business School and allowed me to work in an interdisciplinary team comprised of not only engineers but also business students and design students from RISD. Similar to 2.009, we were tasked with brainstorming, designing, and creating a prototype of our chosen idea. 

Our team's product was designed around a pitch made by Karen, a physical education teacher from Brookline High School who works with special needs children. She told us that there were no affordable toys that made her kids excited and also gave them a chance to exercise. 

  After working with Rafi, one of Karen's students who suffers from cerebral palsy, we designed TunePals, a set of musical toys made to encourage movement in children with limited physical abilities. Each "pal" consists of a speaker and an ultrasonic sensor built into a friendly and inviting rockable body. Once the user waves a hand in from of the sensor, a sound clip selected in the TunePals app would play. We created several different modes of gameplay that could be selected.

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  This was one of the most rewarding classes I took at MIT because I was able to see the impact of my work embodied in Rafi. His excitement when he was playing with our toys really sticks with me and made the class such a gratifying experience. While most of the material in the class had been covered by 2.009, I did learn a lot from working with people from different educational backgrounds. I was surprised to see how much our thought processes and techniques differed but glad that we were able to work together well and cohesively.