DESIGN FOR SOCIAL IMPACT
- Students plug into faculty-mentored transdisciplinary design teams, honing skills and passions on projects that positively impact society.
- Faculty benefit from diverse design perspectives and teamwork.
- Students earn academic credit towards their degree and/or the Design for Social Impact Certificate Program.
- Connects students and faculty with potential research, project, and thesis opportunities.
- Synthesizes teaching with research, classroom with community, mentor and students.
Cymatics: One in eight Americans and 360 million people worldwide experience partial or complete hearing loss, living in silence. DSI students collaborate with a faculty mentor and non-profit to design multisensory interfaces that translate sound and music into light patterns and vibrational signals to facilitate deeper connections across Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and Hearing communities.
Winnie Woo was a member of the Weather Chimes Design and Build team which is an Arduino based device and software infrastructure for collecting local weather data. Speaking of her experience designing and making the Weather Chimes she said: “This was my first, really big coding and hardware project. I had to create five different chimes and, it was a lot of mechanical work. I enjoyed how hands-on the project is, as well as learning about different types of software platforms. … I've learned that PCB [Printed Circuit Board] design is quite important. Our first iteration of our device was very basic in terms of functionality. But with this current iteration, we're really thinking about how functional can we make it and how can we save on space? … So I would say that design has taught me to be very open minded and creative.”
Is DSI for me?
Are you enthusiastic about design and entrepreneurship? Motivated by making? Impatient to work for change that promotes positive social impact? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then DSI is for you!
Are you interested in sponsoring and working with a multidisciplinary team of talented OSU undergraduate students on a design-driven project of real value and impact? We welcome project ideas from communities (including OSU), not-for-profits, and industry that are authentic and with implications for the betterment of people and society.