Classroom Projects with Real Social Impact

Born out of growing concern over compulsive screen usage, algorithmic attention capture, and its documented impact on adolescent mental health. For one full week, students voluntarily replace their smartphones with basic keypad "dumbphones" (provided by EMBOU), eliminating all social media apps, instant messaging, and invasive notifications. Through a Service-Learning (S-L) approach, older students mentor younger primary school students and their families to prevent the premature delivery of a first smartphone.

The highest expression of Service-Learning (S-L) in educational robotics. Secondary students (Lilian, Hugo, Regina, and Isabel) didn't merely learn 3D modeling, coding, and electronics; they designed, engineered, and manufactured an accessible robotics kit specifically tailored for long-term pediatric hospital patients at Miguel Servet Children's Hospital in Zaragoza, aiding their emotional recovery through purposeful play.

StayDry emerged from the observation and deep empathy of a student team (Daniel, Pedro, Azucena, Josefina, Daniel, and Aitor) toward an invisible social reality: loss of personal autonomy and severe dermatological complications arising from delayed diaper changes in individuals with severe motor disabilities or incontinence. They engineered a discreet, non-invasive smart sensor alerting caregivers in real time while safeguarding 100% of user dignity and privacy.

Addressing one of the most frustrating daily barriers to independent living: the unlawful occupation of parking bays reserved for Persons with Reduced Mobility (PMR). Students (Hugo and Isabel) engineered an IoT sensor network that detects unauthorized vehicle occupancy in real time and triggers automated warnings to guarantee these critical spaces remain accessible to those who need them. The project was nominated nationally at the 3M Educational Innovation Awards and publicly championed by World and Paralympic triathlon champion Dani Molina.

Developed directly from real-world feedback collected within the disability community. The goal was to enhance the traditional white cane with advanced spatial sensing without adding cumbersome weight or modifying its natural ergonomics, detecting aerial hazards (low tree branches, construction scaffolding, truck wing mirrors) that floor sweeping cannot catch.

Born of years working alongside people with complex physical and cognitive disabilities, where standard smartphones with tiny touchscreens, touch targets, and nested menus create frustration and social isolation. The device features a single oversized ergonomic arcade button connected to an ESP32 microcontroller, enabling seamless bidirectional voice messages with family Telegram channels without ever needing to look at or swipe a screen.

“Stories in the air” was built on a foundational belief: technology finds its true meaning when placed in service of human emotional comfort. Students programmed digital audio transmitters (educational walkie-talkies) and wrote interactive adventure tales that they narrated live into hospital rooms at Miguel Servet Children's Hospital in Zaragoza, turning sterile wards into worlds of imagination, friendship, and shared laughter.

An advanced recycling system where secondary students are not merely passive consumers of AI, but its active creators. Students gathered and labeled custom image datasets of different plastics and recyclable materials, trained convolutional neural networks, examined confusion matrices and confidence thresholds, and hooked up wireless edge inference to a physical microcontroller that actuates mechanical sorting gates in real time.

Far more than a showcase of mechanical prowess: a multidisciplinary lesson linking 19th-century history, animal empathy, and technological humanism. Students deconstructed historical traveling flea circuses, transforming a legacy of animal exploitation into an ethical mechanical tribute. The team designed miniature theaters with crank-and-connecting-rod mechanisms, electromagnets, and micro-servos programmed to recreate acrobatic feats with clockwork precision.

Co-developed with Pepe Fernández. An enriched, accessible adaptation of Scratch designed so that any student or educator—regardless of prior coding knowledge or cognitive diversity—can write code that interacts with ESP32 microcontrollers, artificial intelligence, and physical sensors in real time without driver friction.

Designed and manufactured as an urgent grassroots response to the COVID-19 pandemic: an open-source CO2 monitor based on high-precision NDIR optical sensors and affordable microcontrollers. Teachers and students used it to measure classroom indoor air quality in real time, timing window ventilation precisely to prevent airborne transmission without freezing students in winter.