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modified wheel

admin — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:31:29 +0000

Here you can see the modified PowerMate wheel.. purple rubber around the sides, and a patch of Velcro (hook side) on top for friction.

more success

admin — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 10:03:43 +0000

Well, for the first time I left the person’s house leaving a known-to-work system. It consists of a powermate talking to their existing Windows PC, and a custom JavaScript local HTML page that goes through phrases on demand. He was able to use the phrases on the mac version several times this evening, so that was encouraging. (He had to go to sleep before the PC version was tested.) Also he spoke in a complete sentence yesterday, and the family’s theory is that the additional mental stimulation has been a factor.

Here’s some of what he wrote using the letter-chooser: KKKKKKKKQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQLLLIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYYZZZZ… I see him working intently on it, going through the letters, etc.. it really seems like part of the brain dealing with forming letters in this way may not be working right. I say this because he can hear, understand, and write words on paper when prompted.

The PowerMate was ‘modified’ a bit. Sunday night it seemed to be a little slippery. So, I put two wide rubber bands around the knob, and the hook side of some industrial strength velcro on the top of the knob. sadly, this grip seemed to be a bit too efficient in my hands – the knob top came unglued. No matter, as this actually gave me the opportunity to fine-tune the friction surface inside. Will post pictures soon.

another try – PowerMate

admin — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 08:21:45 +0000

Accessibility Project: So I hacked up something with the Griffin PowerMate. This is a sort of a metal knob, that you can turn left or right, or push in to click.

Anyways, I set up a program that the user (stroke victim) could use to select letters to type. Limited success here.. the wheel is slippery.. and the program not so easy to control. Then, I changed it to just show a list of phrases. Yes, No, etc.. That seemed to work better. Tonight (tuesday) I am going to go back, with some rubber coating on the wheel to make it easier to grip.

accessibility solution

admin — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:37:29 +0000

Working on an accessibility solution for a motion-impaired friend (stroke). He currently does not have any efficient way to communicate, although he can see and hear well. Last Sunday I let him try out an unattached USB joystick, just to see if the range of motion was acceptable.. and it was. Hopefully sometime this week or next I will meet with him and try out a little hypercard (!) stack that I wrote to allow simple input.

I’m looking at a Palm or Windows CE solution for the hardware