The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a shift to online learning options which brought significant challenges to courses with major hands-on components. The Remote Hub Lab (RHLab) of the University of Washington's Electrical and Computer Engineering department was established in response to the pivot to online instruction. The RHLab provided students with remote access to industry-grade hardware, an initiative that eliminated the need for shipping lab kits during the pandemic as well as the maintenance and purchase of new components after the return to in-person instruction. The lab has been used successfully since Autumn 2020 in delivering the Electrical Engineering (EE) 371 course. A recent study showed that students who use the RHLab for assignments have similar learning outcomes to those in traditional offerings with physical lab kits. This research builds on that study, exploring educational improvements to engineering laboratories and seeking to increase scalability and advance accessibility for wider audiences and underrepresented communities. By discovering how engineering laboratories can be more accessible for learners in a post-pandemic lens, this research identifies an optimal combination of remote methods for engineering laboratories through three data-gathering approaches. First, I conducted a literature review about equitable access in engineering education and remote engineering labs in a post-pandemic context. Then, I conducted a survey among winter 2022 EE 371 students, qualifying and quantifying their definition of equitable and scalable access. Finally, I developed an introductory digital logic lab curriculum which leads to Hardware Description Language (HDL) proficiency. These primer projects which leverage the RHLab allow for self-guided exploration of digital logic, and the curriculum will be used in future RHLab documentation and advancements. Expected findings include the surveyed students’ suggestions for improving the accessibility and scalability of remote labs and engineering education, results which will be implemented in the RHLab’s future work.

An ostomy is a surgery performed to create an opening in the abdomen called a stoma. The purpose of this procedure is to divert the body waste in cases of injury or disease in the intestine. Living with a stoma requires that the patient carries a pouch that is attached to the stoma to collect the body waste. A plastic disk called a wafer goes around the stoma to secure the pouch and protects the skin surrounding the stoma from the corrosive output by acting as a barrier. To prevent any leakage, the patient must accurately cut the wafer to fit around the stoma and needs to know the exact size and shape of the stoma. An inaccurate stoma measurement and wafer cut can result in leaking bags, bleeding, infection, pain, diet changes and anxiety in public environment. As a potential solution, the innovation of a telehealth mobile application utilizing 3D imaging in modern smartphones will allow the patients to scan and measure their stoma shape by just using their phone cameras. In my research, I conducted interviews asking questions regarding the daily struggles of an ostomate and where the stoma application fits as a novel and effective solution. As a result, I gained insights showing that while patients with ileostomies (stoma in the small intestine) face more challenges because of increased chances of stoma leakage, patients struggling with obesity, dexterity issues, and disabilities have a hard time carrying out stoma care on their own. Moreover, patients with irregularly shaped stomas as opposed to perfectly round stomas go through the trial-and-error process of accurately cutting a wafer more often. Therefore, a convenient and cost-effective stoma scanning app will make it easier and faster for the patients to have an accurate wafer cut that will fit perfectly around their stoma.