This week we got an introduction to the Make-a-thon. The participants of this event go beyond our Digital Making seminar course. Its expanded to Industrial design students from Dr. Deana McDonagh and Jim Kendall’s course, as well as students from Jeff Ginger’s Makerspace. This pre-event to the actual Make-a-thon gave us a general overview of what was going to take place leading up to the weekend long event. Later during the session there was a panel of a few returning experts and a few new ones. Some new faces were Isaac, John, and Steve. They all spoke about their disabilities and the daily frustrations they face. The panel even discussed some of the unique ways they’ve adapted to make the best of their situations.
Above is an image of one of John’s sock. I thought this was so simple, yet very effective. Apart of John’s condition is very minimal grip strength. So task like putting on socks or buttoning a shirt is difficult to him. A simple life hack he came up with was sewing loops on the outer edge of his sock, which he can fit around his fingers and pull on the sock. It crazy to think this is all it took and it making a huge difference.
Steve from the panel also gave us an overview of Clark Lindsey, which is a premier retirement community for today’s accomplished adults. From the presentation he gave I found there to be quite some opportunity in this specific sector. He put a heavy emphasis on fall prevention. Maybe we can design some sort of new innovative thing around this opportunity.
The last part of the Make-a-thon pre-event was a social portion. This time was for everyone to meet and talk amongst each other. Since we’ve been working on our project for sometime used this portion to to talk with some of the new experts and students to see if any wanted to get involved. We did meet a potential new team member from Jeff’s makerspace seminar. She seemed very interested in what it was Solestice is trying to do. After this It really just turned into a team meeting where we mapped out what we needed to from the session up until the Make-a-thon itself.
Hi Trevor,
I was also amazed by John’s solution of attaching the three loops on the neck of his socks as well as attaching key rings to his zippers to allow him to easily pull on them. I think he really demonstrated that simple ideas are the best and how many of them can be found near us, in our daily lives. Since our ultimate goal is to help the wide user base, I think this is even more critical for us to keep in mind as we make progress with our projects. Instead of spending more time and effort trying to come up with something completely new, if we can utilize things that already exist, it will not only save us time but will most likely increase the accessibility for the users as well.
I’m glad to hear that you were able to meet someone outside of our class who is interested in joining your team for the make-a-thon. Best of luck to you and your team!
Hi Trevor! I also thought that John’s solution to putting on his socks was a great idea. I think his solution shows that simple fixes can sometimes be the most impactful when solving a problem. It is very important for our teams to not over-design as we go through the prototyping process, making sure that all of our choices directly address our mentor’s needs.
Hey Trevor,
Thanks for the insight on class. I wasn’t able to attend so this week and this really gave me some great insight into what class was about. It was awesome to hear Johns solution to the problem to putting on his socks. It’s important to keep this simple but yet efficient fix when working during Make-a-thon, since we have a limited amount of time! Great Job!