Perspectives in Assistive Technology is a Winter Quarter Stanford course - recently completing its seventeenth year - that explores the design, development, and use of assistive technology that benefits people with disabilities and older adults. It consists of semi-weekly in-person discussions; lectures by notable professionals, clinicians, and assistive technology users; a tour of an accessible inclusive playground; student project presentations and demonstrations; and an Assistive Technology Faire. Check out the course website.

Team DUG Places Second in RESNA's Student Design Challenge

Team DUG's project - Communication Aid for Nathan - has been awarded second place in RESNA's Student Design Challenge at the Annual Conference held in New Orleans. Here is the project abstract.

"Individuals with service dogs are frequently interrupted by members of the public who want to get their 'dog fix' from the working dog. At best, this experience is an annoyance; at worst, the service dog can be so distracted that they are unable to focus on their handler, potentially jeopardizing the safety of the service dog’s human partner. To understand the magnitude of this issue, our team worked with Abby and her service dog Nathan to understand how this situation arises, what she currently does to handle it, and what her ideal solution would look like. From our conversations with Abby, we came up with multiple designs and evaluated them against her criteria, as well as more general design considerations, including robustness, ease of use, and flexibility of component placement. Our final design is a commercial Bluetooth speaker that can be attached on the person, bags or mobility devices, along with a custom-built remote control that can be worn or held to trigger pre-recorded audio messages. These audio messages inform people not to distract the service dog using a variety of tones and lengths, which the user can choose from. This helps service dog owners from repeating themselves when preventing people from interacting with their companions. Because our device 'speaks' on behalf of the dog or the handler, it could be specifically helpful for service dog owners who have problems communicating due to differences in speech or discomfort in social situations."

A video (0:56) entitled "DUG: A communication device to prevent people from distracting service dogs" demonstrating the device can be viewed here.

Plans for next academic year's course

Important Dates:

• Tuesday, September 26th - First day of Fall Quarter classes
• Wednesday, November 29th - Winter Quarter course enrollment opens
• Friday, December 1st - Deadline for project suggestions
• Tuesday, January 9th - First class session of Perspectives in Assistive Technology

Upcoming Instructor Tasks:

• Investigate and decide on color scheme for the 2024 course website
• Update 2023 course website for 2024
• Check availability of past and new guest lecturers and schedule their participation
• Solicit, review, approve, and post student project suggestions

Community Attendance - Community members will continued to be welcome to attend class sessions on campus - masking may be required.

Student Project Solicitations

In preparation for the upcoming Winter Quarter course offering, I would like to continue to solicit projects suggestions from community members. Here are some important project criteria to consider:

1. Team project suggestions must address a real challenge experienced by an individual with a disability or older adult who lives in the local community. The challenge, problem, or struggle must be one that is not adequately served by existing commercial products. (Perform an internet search to verify this.) It is important to identify and describe the challenge rather than imagine a solution.
2. The scale and complexity of the project must be such that it could be pursued by a team of three or four students in the 10-week quarter, resulting in a fabricated functional prototype.
3. Refer to Project Requirements webpage for more detailed information.
4. Some projects have already been submitted, approved, and described. Their tentative titles are:
   • Accessible storage for Abby
   • Enhanced visibility for Abby's wheelchair
   • Rain shield for Abby
   • Treats for Nathan
   • Accessible dog kennel for Danny and Korey
5. Below is an example suitable project suggestion designed to guide your project suggestion thinking:

Example Project Suggestion

Examples of reacher products for inspiration:

• Grabber Reacher Tool for Elderly
• Extra-Long Grabber-Reacher Tool

Examples of pooper scooper products that are too bulky:

• Zeening Pet Pooper Scooper
• LeadAllWay Foldable Dog Poop Scooper