From journalist Keith Whitney over at Atlanta TV station WXIA – an article about Tech students using the Xbox Kinect to assist in education. Read the article.
CATEA (The Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access) is a multidisciplinary engineering and design research center dedicated to enhancing the health, activity and participation of people with functional limitations through the application of assistive and universally designed technologies in real world environments, products and devices. CATEA is affiliated with the College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Mar 23 2012
Alleged Fraud in AT&T’s Relay Telecommunication Service
Telephone Device for the Deaf
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Jan 27 2012
Tracking Wolves with an All-Terrain Wheelchair
Meg Lynch, a student at the University of Wisconsin, does not let snow, ice and rocky terrain get between her and her biology fieldwork. Meg, who uses a wheelchair, recently completed a week long, hands-on course on identifying wolf tracks in the wild. This is a unique story about how a university is providing the “wheels” to students who otherwise would be confined to the classroom.
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Oct 26 2011
Open Prosthetics – The DIY Approach to Artificial Limbs
An Open Prosthetics design
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Sep 26 2011
We Connect Now – Technology In Action
We Connect Now – Technology In Action
By Gabriela McCall Delgado-Webmistress of We Connect Now
We Connect Now is an organization I started in 2008 when I was a freshman in college. http://weconnectnow.wordpress.com/ The basic idea is that we use technology to connect college students with disabilities. People from across the world are able to express their voices through our blog and use our website to get information, news and other resources. We are also a source of information and referrals for people seeking help with particular problems, like a student with a disability who needs to know his or her rights under the law, or someone seeking accessible public transportation options.
We Connect Now also has a social media component. Our Facebook page allows people to write on our wall and tell us what they think or want
to express. http://www.facebook.com/pages/We-Connect-Now-National/136925609714725
People following our Twitter account let us know whatresonates with them by retweeting us. https://twitter.com/#!/WeConnectNow
Through the power of the Internet we have connected students with disabilities on college campuses to start local chapters. When we have
students on a campus who are interested in forming a chapter, we share their email addresses with each other (with their permission). It is
amazing how people who are on the same campus and interested in the same issues often have never met. I think that is because students with disabilities are such a small percentage of the overall student population on many campuses. Through our chapters, they meet and share their experiences and discuss issues that they are interested in. They become a voice on campus.
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Jul 14 2011
What’s a CATEA?
The Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access, affectionately known as CATEA, is not your typical Georgia Tech research center. We are unique! Yes we are. CATEA is composed of four research labs focused on the development and application of assistive and universally designed technologies. One of the things that sets us apart from other research centers is our incredibly multidisciplinary makeup of scientists, engineers, and industrial designers and a center director who happens to be an architect. In upcoming blogs I will be highlighting each of our four labs. Stay tuned!
Jul 12 2011
Is Universal Design on Your Mind? It should be.
I just read a great article on universal design or UD (http://www.dwell.com/articles/an-introduction–to-universal-design.html) and while reading, was reminded for the second time in a 10 minute span that UD is something everyone should know about as we are not young forever. Besides the fact that I compare myself with an ostrich putting its head in the sand (do they really do that?), when unpleasant thoughts or situations arise, I do not want to think about getting older. No one does. But as the article points out, UD affects us all and though you might not be aware, that desk you are sitting at or the kitchen in your brand new home might be of UD design.
UD=anyone can use it, no matter their ability. And it has been around for awhile. Check out the cut in curbs for wheelchairs and bikes to access or the easy to grip kitchen utensils that I prefer to use. But we still have a long way to go in providing universal access to all. Those curb cuts? Many of them lead onto sidewalks that are of rough surface and difficult for a wheelchair to navigate. Or the bulky Braille signs tacked onto a wall in a public building, like an afterthought. Until more of us have a disability as opposed to less of us, Universal Design will not be truly universal.
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Jul 08 2011
What happened to US space travel?
When I was a kid, I remember getting up early and watching the Mercury and Gemini space shots before heading out to school (yes I am dating myself here but let’s just say I was rather young.) Even as a child or perhaps because I was still a child, I found watching the lift offs and landings to be interesting and exciting. And when the Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, I was in front of the TV again, watching with my brothers. I remember going outside soon after the landing and staring at the moon with wonder that humans were actually walking around another planet.
As I sit waiting for the final space shuttle lift off (on live webstream no less), I am a little sad that it is the last shuttle and though I am guilty of paying less and less attention the the space program, I do not understand why the manned space program is being cut so drastically. Excuses that I have read include let’s let private industry do the heavy lifting or we need to concentrate on more pressing terrestrial matters like global warming. Huh? Look at all the benefits man has gotten from space travel, and I am not just talking about the invention of Tang, but include Microwave ovens, heart pumps, cordless tools and Lasik eye surgery, to name a few.
So I will watch the final shuttle launch and hope that someday a little kid in Atlanta will get up early to watch a space ship take off from planet Earth, but I will not hold my breath.
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Jun 29 2011
Georgia Tech Hosts Robotics Camp for Visually Impaired
When I was a kid, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, summer camp meant archery, canoeing, horseback riding, and sunburn. A few things have changed since those days of yesteryear. Kids have more choices on how to spend those once lazy days of summer. Space camp, dance camp, violin camp, take your pick, there is summer camp for whatever activity or skill you fancy. And at Georgia Tech this summer, twenty-five middle school and high school students are learning how to build, program and test robots, despite their visual impairments. And what is really cool about this program is that the participants get to use the Wii game system to provide sensory and auditory feedback to the campers. My question is, do they get to take their robots home with them after camp ends? All I ever brought home from camp was dirty laundry and a ceramic ashtray.
Check out robotics camp at: http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=68559
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