Engineering to enhance human mobility, play, and exploration
AccessEngineering and Dr. Steele’s recent work on creating guidelines for making makerspaces accessible was featured in the School Library Journal. It is a great resource, featuring different DIY and makerspace movements that support individuals with disabilities around the US. In particular, check out some of the
great work on how toys can be easily hacked for individuals with disabilities from John Schimmel and Holly Cohen, cofounders of DIYAbility, .
You can read the full article here:
The proceedings from AccessEngineering’s first Capacity Building Institute have been published on-line.
This institute focused on bringing together faculty, staff, and students from engineering departments around the country to discuss how to support individuals with disabilities in pursuing careers in engineering.
There were many wonderful presentations and discussions. In particular check out:
These discussions helped to inform several new resources from AccessEngineering including:
The Capacity Building Institute was hosted at the University of Washington-Seattle April 7-9, 2015. Please let us know if you are interested in participating next year!
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!
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.