History

It sometimes takes a leader to push great idea into reality.

In 2005 three computer science students from Dr. Gary Bishop’s Enabling Technology class at UNC developed a project to see whether blind children could complete a life size maze after practicing on a computer simulation with a force-feedback joystick. The students invited several visually impaired or blind young students to test out their maze an hour before their class.

“By the time I hear about this, 19 [blind] kids are coming,” Dr. Bishop said, “and these students think they’re going to do this in an hour before class. You can’t do anything in an hour with 19 visitors! I didn’t want the kids to be disappointed, so I cancelled class and threw together the first Maze Day because it was about their maze.”

Each student group set up a booth for the children to test out their games. The positive feedback from children and parents who came was so overwhelming that Maze Day has become an annual event.

Each year Maze Day exhibits student-made games and programs made specifically for physically impaired children. Students have to keep in mind their audience when creating the programs, which teaches them to code and make software to aid those with disabilities like blindness, deafness and movement impairments.