Six ICS Students Compete in Capstone Competitions with Games Developed to Help Children Sleep

By developing gamified app-based tasks that make gathering data easier and more efficient, six students at the UC Irvine Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science (ICS) are working to help children and teens sleep better and ultimately improve their overall health and wellbeing. The project is part of the ICS Capstone program, and they will showcase their designs at the 2026 ICS Project Expo on June 4.

ICS Capstone courses span two quarters for graduating seniors, where they have the opportunity to apply skills they have learned over four years of coursework. Students work in teams and are paired with sponsors from industry, nonprofits, government, or research groups to solve real-world problems. Their efforts culminate in the annual ICS Project Expo, which showcases completed work at the end of spring quarter. Complimentary tickets available through online registration.

The six graduating seniors involved in the sleep research app are: Parboni Chattopadhyay, informatics major and computer science minor; McKenna Rome Kelly, informatics; Alyssa K., informatics; Christy Seeching Lee, informatics and computer science; Alaa Yahya Malabeh, software engineering; and Eden Sarah Radulescu, software engineering and psychology.

National Capstone Design Conference

As well as competing at Project Expo, the team was also accepted to present at the 2026 Capstone Design Conference at Texas A&M, a collaborative national event bringing together students, faculty, and industry professionals. All six team members will attend to present a poster on their project, design process, and capstone experience.

Gamified PVT Project

The team has partnered with Katharine Simon, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at UC Irvine School of Medicine and Assistant Director of Research in Sleep at Rady Children’s Hospital Orange County (formerly CHOC). She leads the Sleep, Learning, and Emotions in Pediatrics (SLEEP) Lab where they investigate developmental changes in sleep patterns and neurophysiology, and the impact of sleep on cognitive and mental health longitudinally. Her lab takes research tasks spanning memory, attention, and executive function that are typically administered only in lab settings and gamifies them in her HowRU app. Creating fun, interactive games that replicate in-lab performance on apps makes participation accessible to all and shows how young people behave in the real world.

The capstone team is currently gamifying the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT), a standardized measure of attention often used in sleep research. In this game, participants are asked to respond as quickly as possible when a stimulus appears on the screen for 3 to 10 minutes. This repetitive, in-lab task measures sustained attention through reaction times, with lapses in responding quickly identified as a sensitive measure for sleep loss. The team’s capstone goal is to gamify this experience using sports-themed interactive games that make the task more engaging for children and teens while keeping it scientifically valid. They aim to produce 10-20 games and are the first to attempt gamifying the PVT in this way. Developing a fun, sport-themed PVT task could make a big difference in the world of pediatric research, where enjoyable tasks can increase interest in participating and completing the task across multiple days.

The Challenge: Science Meets Design

The core difficulty is balancing creative game design with scientific accuracy. The games must look fun and engaging while still measuring the same data points as the original PVT, particularly reaction times.

The team members have each been assigned distinct roles based on individual strengths and follow an agile development process with two-week sprints and weekly check-ins with their project partner Dr. Simon. “That really helps us maximize our productivity,” said Radulescu.

The experience has proven invaluable for the students.

“There’s been no other opportunity for us to go through the whole life cycle of software development from coming up with ideas, to prototyping, to actually creating them, and integrating them into a bigger research project,” said Chattopadhyay.

Malabeh added, “It’s really cool to do something that will actually be used in research and something that other researchers can publish papers about and study later.”

“It’s been really great to work with the same team for two whole quarters and just be able to fully make something that actually works, has a database, and people can use it.”

“Dr. Simon has really given us a lot of freedom in the whole process,” said Chattopadhyay. “Throughout the whole time we felt very supported, and we’ve been able to express ourselves both creatively and in our technical abilities.”

“We got a lot of feedback from Dr. Simon in the first quarter, and all of that back and forth finally brought us to a point where we could solidify exactly what we’re doing and where this project is going to go,” explained Radulescu.

Partnership Benefits

Dr. Simon has worked with ICS Capstone for the past three years and finds it a highly rewarding experience. “I think that this is an exceptional program at UC Irvine to have for this major, and it gives students hands-on experience,” she said. “And for me, as a faculty member, I have the opportunity to work with exceptionally talented students.”

She added, “They make a meaningful contribution to research as well. What they’re creating is what we will be using in research with kids. So it’s something that will continue to extend beyond their time here at school.

“Each year has been fantastic. The students in the major are exceptional, some of the most gifted I’ve met. And the women I’m working with right now are just outstanding. They have really exciting, interesting new ideas. There’s a lot of opportunity to stretch themselves with their skillset, and they continue to meet the challenges of the project head on. The fact that their project was accepted at a national conference speaks directly to the exceptional quality, creativity, and skillset they demonstrated.”

AI-Use Among ICS Students Research

Separately, Radulescu, Malabeh and Chattopadhyay have been conducting research under the guidance of Hadar Ziv, associate professor of teaching and director of Capstone Projects. They are studying the use of artificial intelligence (AI) among UC Irvine ICS students. In Spring 2024, they collected approximately 1,200 survey responses and submitted a paper to the FSE conference. In 2026, they are now re-running the updated survey to compare results and track how AI usage and perception have changed over two years.

The students expressed deep gratitude for Ziv, crediting him as a key reason they had access to these research and capstone opportunities over the past two years. “He’s definitely opened a lot of doors for us that we otherwise wouldn’t have had if we didn’t start this research lab with him,” said Radulescu.

The students added, “Working with professors over the years in research and capstones is probably one of the most valuable experiences of college for us.”

Future Plans

The students expressed interest in pursuing various roles in industry, software engineering, project management, educational technology and graduate school. Their experience with the Capstone courses have already proven beneficial. “This capstone opened up my eyes to what project management could look like, and I’ve really enjoyed it so far,” said Radulescu. “For the past few years, I’ve been grappling with how I can combine my two areas of expertise, CS and psychology, and this project has been a great way to achieve that.”

“I would love to work in any educational setting, even administration or education technology,” shared Malabeh. “It’s just my dream job.”

As they work diligently to complete their projects and prepare for the upcoming competitions and graduation, the students are well prepared for the adventures ahead.

– Tonya Becerra