ORBIT

ORBIT is a robot programming app I co-designed with special education teachers so that autistic middle schoolers could learn to code without the interface getting in the way.

The name stands for Opportunities for Robotics, Building, and Inclusive Technology. It is an NSF funded program run out of the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach at Tufts, and the app sits at the center of it. The unusual part is the pairing: computational thinking taught alongside executive functioning, the planning, sequencing, and task switching skills many of these students are already working on in class.

We built it with the teachers rather than for them. Three co-design workshops across eighteen months with autism specialists from Somerville Public Schools, then classroom pilots with their students. The prototype runs in React and talks to LEGO SPIKE Prime hubs over Bluetooth Low Energy.

The interface has two modes. Mission gives students structured scenarios broken into sub-tasks. Sandbox is open exploration. Both split into three panels that read left to right, following the order you would actually think in: Steps Menu, Coding Track, Command Panel.

Design decisions came from the PRADA framework for computational thinking, pattern recognition, abstraction, decomposition, and algorithms, layered with accessibility considerations for working memory, inhibitory control, and task switching. Option menus collapse by default so nothing is being held in the head that does not need to be. Every element is represented more than one way, through icons, text, animation, and text to speech.

The pilots showed the app supporting students’ individualized learning goals, especially around executive functioning, and opening real chances for PRADA-aligned thinking. They also surfaced a tension I keep coming back to: scaffold enough for access without capping what an advanced student is allowed to do.