Comp 080 Enabling Technology

I hope you are as excited about your projects and Maze Day as I am! This is going to be great. I think your projects are going to be a ton of fun. But… We’ve got very little time remaining to bring all this together.

Here is my understanding of who is doing what. Correct me if I’m wrong:

BethanyJ, ChaseJ, ChristyS: Music creation using pad and/or camera.
BrennaC, CatherineC, RyanS: Tennis
DanielB, ElizabethK, LizzyR, SarahT: Drums
RandyS, WaltJ: Light Saber Practice
MaggieS, RhiannonL: Guitar Hero (hopefully with vibration)
AshleyA, JayH: 2 pad Simon with musical notes
AlishaA, JasmineG, LalithaK: Bop it
BrennaK, SaraW: Tactile Maze

I’d like to talk to each team for about 1 hour outside class as soon as possible. Check my calendar and propose an open time that works for you to me via email. My “prep” time on Tuesday and Thursday is available for this purpose.

I’d like each time to post to the blog a description of your project. After you’re logged in you all should have the ability to post new articles. Just put them in the Projects category like this one. In your description I want to know what need from me (equipment, software, information, help).

We’ve been thinking about games and activities for children with disabilities all semester. Now it is time to turn that thinking into action.

I’d like you to form teams of from 1-3 members and propose a project. I encourage you to think of activities we can try out at Maze Day but you don’t have to do that. If you want to work on something for the Center for Literacy and Disabilities Studies (or somewhere else) talk to me and we’ll work something out.

Your initial project proposal is due by Friday 2 November. A status report is due by Friday 16 November. And you should be ready to demonstrate your project for the class during the week of 27 November.

Here are some suggestions for things to do at Maze Day:

• Accessible Guitar Hero (or Drum hero?).
• Accessible DDR (use speech or vibration or something else to help kids know where and when to step).
• Make music using the pad, camera, keyboard, guitar or whatever.
• Whack-a-mole with or without directional sound, perhaps something with varying difficulty depending on the abilities of the child.
• Simon game.
• Street crossing game (could pose questions like Hark the Sound games with recorded sounds of traffic)
• Arm activity game using (or simulating) the camera switch.
• Generalized musical movement game ( Arm Arm Revolution? ).
• Make a maze for kids to navigate. This is why its called Maze Day and it always popular with the kids
• How about a treasure hunt? Americo will demonstrate his on-line maps next week. We could hide some treasures around Sitterson and let kids first find them on the map and then go to that room to collect their prize.

This list is not intended to be exhaustive. Make suggestions, brainstorm in your group, and post suggestions here. This is not a competition. I encourage you to share ideas and help one another. Our goals are:

1. A good time for the kids who visit, and
2. Good ideas for future computer games.

Remember, you don’t have to implement the activity on or even using a computer. You are simulating what a computer might do using Wizard of Oz methods.

I’ll be very pleased to talk with any of you about your project ideas.

I want you to respond to the lectures, videos and our discussion by writing about some aspect of Deafness, disability and difference that is important to you. Your paper should be 8 to 12 pages (double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch margins) and should try to look at the issues we have discussed from both sides. You can find quotes and clips from the video as well as questions you might want to address at the Through Deaf Eyes web site .

I’m not asking for a summary of the video, nor am I asking you to simply answer the questions; I want you to deal with the issues in whatever way works best for you. Relating them to your experiences or differences, or those of a family member might work well for some of you. Others might be more comfortable addressing the ethical or philosophical issues. I’ll be pleased to talk with any of you outside of class to help you get started.

This assignment will be due in 2 stages. A draft must be emailed to me before noon on Friday 9 November . I’ll get feedback to you by Tuesday 13 November. Then your final draft must be emailed to me before noon on Tuesday 20 November . Your final draft will be graded. It must be free of spelling and grammatical errors and should address the issues in a thoughtful and sensitive way.

You may find the resources of the Writing Center very helpful. I encourage you to visit their web site and to seek their help.

Hark the Sound is a simple sound game that is playable by kids who are blind.

Your assignment is:

1. Read about it, download it, try it out.
2. Propose a new game to implement with it. We’ll brainstorm game ideas on the 18th. Email your proposal to me no later than 8am on the 20th and I’ll give you feedback and approval to proceed with implementation.
3. Implement your proposed game and be prepared to share it by 27 September 2 October.

The current implementation of Hark the Sound is flawed making sharing games unnecessarily difficult. I’ll bang out some kind of tool to package your games so that I can add the best of them to the Hark the Sound distribution.