Engineering to enhance human mobility, play, and exploration
Hard to believe our Research Experience for Undergraduate’s (REUs) time in the lab is coming to an end. Lekha, Sasha, and Albert will present their work over the past 10 weeks at the CSNE this afternoon. Large progress has been made in the world of 3D printing, orthotic design, and open-source affordable electromyography systems. To celebrate their accomplishments, the lab ventured to a cafe and finished the evening with round robin table tennis. Go huskies!
We were privileged to have Jamala Henderson from KUOW Public Radio join in during our brainstorms and activities for creating accessible makerspaces.
She has put together a wonderful news story about our project and included some great quotes from the students about why we should create accessible makerspaces:
“The cool thing about engineering spaces is a lot of people use engineering spaces to help solve other problems for people with disabilities, and I think it would be cool if people with disabilities were more involved with solving their own problems.” – Kayla Wheeler
Listen to the full story here: KUOW 94.9 FM
Check out KING 5 News at around 5:30pm this evening. They will be featuring a short piece on AccessEngineering‘s guidelines for creating accessible makerspaces.
You can view the final video and story here.
Hannah, one of the UW DO-IT Scholars who helped to create the guidelines, did a great job in the hot seat! She helped to share her experiences as an individual with visual impairments for making a welcoming and accessible space. She contributed key observations such as remembering how important mental maps are for individuals with visual impairments. Having flexible workspaces (furniture on wheels, etc) is great in makerspaces, but having key equipment organized and in fixed locations helps her build a mental map of the space. Hannah will be a freshman at UW in the fall and is considering majoring in physics or engineering. I’m sure she will have many creative things to build in the makerspace as a new student.
Go Hannah!
UW Today featured our recent guidelines for accessible makerspaces:
How makerspaces can be accessible to people with disabilities
Also see the note from NSF.
Thanks to all the students, staff, and AccessEngineering partners who helped create these guidelines and provide feedback!
AccessEngineering presented a webinar with Equal Access to Software and Information (EASI) on:
Incorporating universal design topics into postsecondary computer science and engineering courses
Speakers included Kat Steele from Mechanical Engineering, Maya Cakmak and Richard Ladner from Computer Science & Engineering, and Sheryl Burgstahler from UW’s DO-IT program. You can still watch the webinar and learn some techniques for integrating universal design and accessibility into your lectures, courses, or labs here.