Adaptive Technology Proposal

On September 24th we connected with Tim and Nicola through FaceTime. Tim and Nicola live in Nicola Lodge. Tim is a person who has Huntington’s disease. Huntington’s disease is a disease that effects part of your brain. Huntington’s disease makes his everyday life a bit of a challenge for Tim. When we talked to them, our class had may questions and we were eager to help him so he can have less of a challenge in his life. This interested me because I had never heard of Huntington’s disease before this so I was curious about what Tim would look like and what he would be able to do. After this experience  with them I felt excited to try and think of new ideas that we could make to help Tim, and I am excited to see what our class can do for him. My main thing I want to focus on is helping Tim draw again because when he showed us some of his old drawings, and  our entire classes jaws dropped in amazement because it was very obvious he is extremely talented. Tim explained to us how in the past he loved to draw and he wishes he still could because that was one of his favourite hobbies. The challenge that I am faced with when trying to help Tim, is ability to control his pencil or pen movements. I want to make it easier for him to move his pencil and pen across the paper. Some questions we had to ask Tim to make sure this would be useful for him was “what is your favourite hobby?” and “what is something you wish you could do but you struggle with it?” Some ideas I have that I think might be able to help Tim with his drawings are something that would help him with his dexterity. I thought about something like ring that he could wear on his finger and attach a pen or pencil to it. I also thought about a ball with a pencil through it so he wouldn’t have to hold a pencil because that could be challenging for him to hold. Something else I thought that we could do was get a thin piece of wood and four tiny wheels that he could rest his arm on and move around while he draws. My favourite idea that I had and the one that I want to focus on is a thin piece of metal so he could rest his arm on. We could attach it to the arm of a chair. We could also make it so when he sits in his chair it can stick out straight vertically and when he wants to draw it could slide inward horizantaly toward him. We could do that by adding hinges so it would be easy for him to slide it. The arm rest part could be attached to the arm of the chair by a pole and in the pole we could add holes and a peg that they could screw in. That way he could adjust the hight of it so it will fit with his table. For this idea I think that I could use the help of my classmates, friends, and family. They could help me by giving me their input and opinions on how my ideas could improve and I could see others perspectives on my idea. They could also help me with tweaking the fine details. I could take action on my idea by trying to build a small prototype and I would write down all the measurements and all the materials I would need to build it. For my research on my idea I discovered that plastic would probably work better and be more successful for my idea rather than metal. Plastic would work better because, it is lighter than metal so it would be easy to make stand up on the pole. Another reason why I would use a hard plastics because it would also be stronger than a thin metal sheet. My skills I would need to complete this are, knowledge on how to attach the plastic part to the pole, I would also have to be able to make it adjustable so I would need to be able to add the screw into the pole. The main skill I would need is knowledge on how to build my idea. When I looked up what has been done in the past to help with dexterity there were actually a lot of ideas. I was very surprised with how many inventions that there were to help with keeping your hand steady and still, but I couldn’t find very many on ways it could help with his drawings. There was one idea that someone made that had two pieces of foam up on the sides and some sort of weight on the bottom and then someone could put their arm in it and it would help keep their arm still. I thought this was a very good idea but I don’t think it would help Tim with his drawing abilities. I would need some materials if I were to build this project. I would need a piece of strong hard plastic, A tall thin pole, a drill (to drill holes into the pole), a screw, a hinge. someway to attach it to his chair. Some steps I would need to take is figure out the details such as what we can use to attach it to his chair, I would need to figure out the measurements of some of my materials so I could make sure everything fits together right. I would also have to figure out where to get my materials, and to make my plastic I would need a 3D printer.

 

Solution Fluency

Define: Our problem that I am trying to solve is that Tim can’t do his art anymore and when he was able to he really enjoyed it.

Discover: I discovered some ideas that others had such as the invention for keeping your hand steady. I also discovered some of my own ideas that I had such as the adjustable arm rest.

Dream: My dream is to help Tim be able to draw just like he could before his disease.

The solution fluency process went well because I think that I was able to think my ideas through and generate multiple ideas and possible outcomes. I think that the quality of my post is good because I took the time to think about my ideas thoroughly and I believe that my idea could help Tim to draw again. Some improvements that I could have made are working out some more of the details and thinking more about the outcome of my invention rather than just the building part.

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/113153009364709466/

https://www.wabisabilearning.com/blog/living-solution-fluency-process

Plastic vs Metal – Which Material is Better?

 

4 thoughts on “Adaptive Technology Proposal

  1. I thought that the ideas expressed in this post are awesome! I think the idea about arm rest for Tim is really useful, because then he might have an easier time drawing and painting. Do you know how much money it would cost to create?

  2. I really liked your idea! It is so creative and it would definitely help Tim in his day to day life. How did you come up with this design? Do you think that you would use a 3D printer to make the main plastic panel? This idea is fantastic and a great start on helping Tim!

  3. Thanks for your reflection on our connections-based learning with Tim. Great summary on how the chat went. Yes, Tim is a great person and made it easy for us to connect with him. I like your idea of using a thin piece of metal to aid him as he is getting off the couch. I love how you developed your idea in your post (with the materials you would need). One thought is splitting your ideas at the top into more paragraphs for readability. What do you think the toughest part of this challenge might be?

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