Assistive Technology Anywhere
I first learned about Magic Wheelchair at the inaugural Nation of Makers Conference in Santa Fe New Mexico in 2018. They pulled on the heartstrings of all in attendance and brought tears to my eyes as they described the work that they’re doing and the impact they’re having for kids that use a wheelchair for mobility. Read more about how they got started from “The Dude” himself.
AOTA ( The American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.) holds an annual conference and this year it was in New Orleans Louisiana. I was honored to be able to represent the Neil Squire Society Makers Making Change program alongside the venerable Harry Lew. We were on the corner of “Maker Alley” next to Bill & Lori Binko with AT Makers where I got to see a speech generating device that Bill has been developing which makes a great point and can make a positive impact for a user.
Continue reading “Making Noise at AOTA”Traveling around the country in our converted van gave me the opportunity experience some unique events that I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise. But this event was out of the reach for us on our 4 wheels, so I was beyond excited to find out that they were going to fly me up so I could share my experiences and expertise making custom assistive technology solutions for the Empower 2 Make event at Nova Labs in Reston Virginia.
The framework for Empower 2 Make is a 72 hour weekend build a thon. For this event, four different teams were put together, each with their own design challenge. The challenges ranged from a shelf that moved to place the users items in a reachable position above his wheelchair tray to a custom golf cart seat that allowed a user to enjoy the game of golf though paralysed. In the end, all the teams did a wonderful job fulfilling their users needs with their prototypes and some have iterated on the designs even further since the event. It was my pleasure to be a part of the event, share my knowledge, and witness more makers bridging the gap of missing assistive technology solutions.
One of the first builds of the 2019 tour, was a lipsync build at the Google complex in Mountain View California. I joined Chad from Neil Squire Society and helped 20 googlers build lipsync devices. It was a great experience and the completed units were passed on to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center’s Spinal Cord Injury Unit. If you want to get a Lipsync Kit of your own, or want to find more open source assistive technology solutions, check out the Projects tab at Makers Making Change.
Part of traveling around the country with my family included visiting with makers at maker spaces and community therapists wherever I could connect with them. The main goal with these conversations was to start building bridges between the two in an effort for them to work together in creating new innovations and assistive technology solutions.
This segment is what comes out of existing communities that are already blazing the trail and making great assistive technology solutions to help people live more independent lives. Some of these existing networks are linked below:
Whether you’re a maker looking for a meaningful project to work on or a therapists looking to have your idea made into a reality, plug in somewhere and help build the bridge.