Project Details
[Return to Previous Page]Native Mobile App for RoboticsCareer.org
Company: ARM Institute
Major(s):
Primary: IE
Secondary: CMPSC
Non-Disclosure Agreement: NO
Intellectual Property: YES
The ARM Institute (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) is a public-private partnership headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. Its mission is to strengthen American manufacturing through robotics, artificial intelligence, and workforce development. The ARM Institute's signature workforce program is RoboticsCareer.org, a federally funded national platform that connects job seekers, students, and transitioning workers with thousands of robotics jobs, internships, and vetted training programs — from high school STEM credentials to PhDs. Last year, over 100,000 individuals used the platform to explore careers and opportunities in robotics and physical AI manufacturing. The platform is responsive and accessible on both desktop and mobile web browsers. However, based on user feedback, ARM is seeking to develop a native mobile app to deliver improved performance, a better user interface and experience, and greater engagement through features like push notifications. Due to the large scope of this project, it has been split into two serial parts. This Phase 1 project covers the full arc from discovery through a functional, testable prototype. Design decisions and early user feedback gathered in Phase 1 will directly shape the full development effort in Phase 2. Students will begin by conducting market research to understand how comparable workforce and job-matching apps are designed, what features drive engagement, and who the primary user groups are. From this, they will define the app's core feature set and develop user personas that reflect the platform's diverse audience. Students will then translate these findings into wireframes and a high-fidelity interactive prototype aligned with Apple and Google platform design guidelines. The open design element of this project lies in the research and synthesis process: students have freedom to identify, compare, and justify the features, layouts, and engagement mechanisms that will best serve RoboticsCareer.org users. From there, students will build a functional prototype, implementing the core user flows connected to mocked or limited live data, sufficient for internal use and a closed beta with real users. Feedback gathered from that beta will be documented and packaged as a direct input to the Phase 2 development team. The project concludes with four deliverables: a market research and competitive analysis report, a defined feature set with supporting user personas, a high-fidelity interactive prototype ready for stakeholder review, a functional beta app suitable for closed internal testing, a structured beta feedback report, and a backend requirements document that the ARM development team can use to prepare the server-side infrastructure for Phase 2.
