[Trendy music]
>> Chesney: There's a deep, deep question about what value
do we as faculty offer to our students--in classroom or online.
>> Narrator: Each semester Dave Chesney teaches EECS 495, a course where students work together
to build software around issues of accessibility. Faced with a global pandemic, Chesney moved the
course online for the spring/summer semester and refocused it to tackle issues around COVID-19.
>> Bopp: I was really drawn to this course because I just saw so much
need in so many different areas and so many communities.
>> Vonehr: Going into the course, I guess I was a little skeptical. I was thinking, like, oh,
is what I'm working on useful?
>> Escobedo: All of us feel like we are really,
we want to rise up to the challenge of doing something and getting the work done well.
[Upbeat music]
>>Chesney: So why don't we get rolling? My name is Dr. Chesney...
I frankly found it as a really, really interesting challenge.
I didn't even know where they were going to be. I mean, like physically whether they were
going to be distributed across the country, if they were going to be in different countries,
and you know it's just like how do you make them care when they're not in the same physical space?
I try to approach this like an engineer. What are these different interaction
models and different use cases? What's the professor doing? What are the students doing?
And then I started thinking about, okay, what hardware do I need
and then what is the software that is appropriate to use for that model?
>> Bopp: Being states away was, like that was a very big shift from how I've traditionally done computer
science, but I also think it's much more realistic as to how computer science is actually done.
>> Vonehr: I've been really excited to work with this group. Everyone is like, very much on the
same page and so to me it makes me sort of excited to think about making a startup, maybe, someday.
>> Zhong: Even though this experience of, like designing a project beginning to end is the
first time for us, it's really given us the chance to like explore and learn stuff that we
haven't really learned in class while still being able to apply what we have learned.
>> Holden: Even if, like this doesn't get implemented anywhere, it's
interesting to learn the mindset of thinking, like okay how can you solve an actual problem?
[Introspective music]
>> Narrator: Over the course of the spring/summer semester, the students produced a variety of software-based
COVID solutions as the state reopened around them. These tackled problems such as grocery
store capacity, shared errand services, and ways for students to continue their service projects.
>> Zhong: Since the restaurants reopened and people started to like actually go out again,
you just think about, you know, how can we actually impact our current situation?
>> Escobedo: Once you bring that application into the classroom equation it just makes it
so much better. Because you're working with things that you can actually relate to.
>> Bopp: I feel like part of the unknowns of exactly what's going to happen has been a little
bit stressful but it's also very rewarding to like know that this is something that
people that I interact with and that I know like could possibly benefit from.
>> Chesney: I read the New York Times every morning and I read the articles and it's just
like, you know, please lord, give me some give me some good news. You know,
give me some rays of sunshine. And digging for those rays of sunshine
anywhere by trying to do some good, given this pandemic, is just really important.
[Music swells]