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Making Noise at AOTA

Harry and I ready to talk with occupational therapists and students, share where the maker movement can serve their profession, and get them signed up to review MMC projects.

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.

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Lipsync Build at Google

These are the parts that come with a Lipsync Kit. It took 2 hours to complete the build, calibrate, and test the unit. I made this one in Washington to prepare for the build event in California.

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.

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The Maker Bridge

There’s a gap between the “do it yourself” solutions therapists have the skills/time/resources to make and the commercially available non durable medical equipment and durable medical equipment.

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.

The Maker Bridge is everything that falls between those existing options and helps fill a need that is currently unmet in therapists working with their clients.

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:

AT Makers Facebook Group
Makers Making Change – Connect

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.

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My introduction to Assistive Technology

My start in assistive technology was a trial by fire. I accepted a job at Southwest Human Development’s ADAPT Shop program as their Fabricator not really knowing what the work would be like. I knew I could design because of my background in architecture, but I didn’t know how well the skills that developed while learning the practice of architecture would translate into my daily tasks at The ADAPT Shop.

If you haven’t seen what SWHD is doing in their unique program called ADAPT Shop, you can check it out here: https://www.swhd.org/adapt/adapt/

If you want to see what a typical day was like, this video does a great job:

The work we did was challenging, innovative, creative, and sometimes Continue reading “My introduction to Assistive Technology”

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Pouring Aid Design

Sometimes I hear of a problem and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s easier for me to design a solution and then I can move on. It doesn’t have to be a perfect solution and I don’t have to make it. That is what happened when I heard about a person who needed a way to fill a cup without it overflowing or having to stick their finger in it (possibly burning their finger). What I should have done at this point was google all the Continue reading “Pouring Aid Design”