Gaming for the Greater Good

By Nicole Casal Moore, Multimedia by Marcin Szczepanski, Web Design by Ben Collins

Watch the video: Gaming for the Greater Good Tag along with Michigan Engineering students as they develop video games for autistic kids.
The inspiration A tour of a special needs classroom and a meeting with a hospital IT exec pushed a Michigan Engineering instructor to refocus two of his classes.
A different kind of design class Software Engineering 481 is a tech incubator with a heart. Last semester, participants whittled 50 ideas down to two release-worthy games for children with autism.
Beyond the classroom Children with autism, as well as patients with brachial plexus palsy and cerebral palsy could benefit from the students' work.
The magic of the common good Part serendipity and part snowball effect, a wide variety of people came together to make these projects happen.
Future possibilities Next semester, students will explore the Kinect's facial movement detector, while patients at the U-M Health System use this generation's games.