Solid Tips For Designing Assistive Technology (Or Anything Else, Really)

February 6, 2025 by Donald Papp 8 Comments

Do you make things, and have you got almost ten minutes to spare? If not, make the time because this video by [PrintLab] is chock-full of healthy and practical design tips. It’s about effective design of Assistive Technology, but the design concepts extend far beyond that scope.

It’s about making things that are not just functional tools, but objects that are genuinely desirable and meaningful to people’s lives. There are going to be constraints, but constraints aren’t limits on creativity. Heck, some of the best devices are fantastic in their simplicity, like this magnetic spoon.

It’s not just about functionality. Colors, textures, and style are all meaningful — and have never been more accessible.

One item that is particularly applicable in our community is something our own [Jenny List] has talked about: don’t fall into the engineer-saviour trap. The video makes a similar point in that it’s easy and natural to jump straight into your own ideas, but it’s critical not to make assumptions. What works in one’s head may not work in someone’s actual life. The best solutions start with a solid and thorough understanding of an issue, the constraints, and details of people’s real lives.

Another very good point is that designs don’t spring fully-formed from a workbench, so prototype freely using cardboard, models, 3D printing, or whatever else makes sense to you. Don’t be stingy with your prototyping! As long as you’re learning something each time, you’re on the right path.

And when a design is complete? It has the potential to help others, so share it! But sharing and opening your design isn’t just about putting the files online. It’s also about making it as easy as possible for others to recreate, integrate, or modify your work for their own needs. This may mean making clear documentation or guides, optimizing your design for ease of editing, and sharing the rationale behind your design choices to help others can build on your work effectively.

The whole video is excellent, and it’s embedded here just under the page break. Does designing assistive technology appeal to you? If so, then you may be interested in the Make:able challenge which challenges people to design and make a 3D printable product (or prototype) that improves the day-to-day life of someone with a disability, or the elderly. Be bold! You might truly help someone’s life.

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Adaptive Chef’s Knife Provides Better Leverage

May 16, 2024 by Donald Papp 25 Comments

[Colleen] struggled with using a chef’s knife to cut a variety of foods while suffering from arthritis in her wrist and hand. There are knives aimed at people with special needs, but nothing suitable for serious work like [Colleen]’s professional duties in a commercial kitchen.

As a result, the IATP (Illinois Assistive Technology Program) created the Adaptive Chef’s Knife. Unlike existing offerings, it has a high-quality blade and is ergonomically designed so that the user can leverage their forearm while maintaining control.

The handle is durable, stands up to commercial kitchen use, and is molded to the same standards as off-the-shelf knife handles. That means it’s cast from FDA-approved materials and has a clean, non-porous surface. The pattern visible in the handle is a 3D printed “skeleton” over which resin is molded.

Interested? The IATP Maker Program makes assistive devices available to Illinois residents free of charge (though donations in suggested amounts are encouraged for those who can pay) but the plans and directions are freely available to anyone who wishes to roll their own.

Assistive technology doesn’t need to be over-engineered or frankly even maximally efficient in how it addresses a problem. Small changes can be all that’s needed to give people meaningful control over the things in their lives in a healthy way. Some great examples are are this magnetic spoon holder, or simple printed additions to IKEA furnishings.

Soft Robotics Hack Chat

October 25, 2021 by Dan Maloney No comments

Join us on Wednesday, October 27 at noon Pacific for the Soft Robotics Hack Chat with Ali Shtarbanov!

By this point in technological history, we’ve all been pretty well trained in how to think about robots. Designs vary wildly, but to achieve their goals, most robots have one thing in common: they’re rigid. Whether it’s a robot arm slinging a spot welder on an assembly line or a robot dog on patrol, they’re largely made of stiff, strong, materials that, more often than not, are powered by electric motors of some sort.

But just because that’s the general design palette for robotics doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways. Robots, especially those that are intended to be used in close association with humans, can often benefit from being a little more flexible. And that’s where the field of soft robotics shines. Rather than a skeleton of machined aluminum and powerful electric actuators, these robots tend more toward silicone rubber construction with pneumatic activation. Some soft robots are even compliant and safe enough to be wearable, giving humans the ability to do things they never could before, or perhaps restoring functions that have been lost to the ravages of entropy.

Soft robotics is a fascinating field with the potential to really revolutionize things like wearables and collaborative robotics. To help us understand a little more about what’s going on in this space, we’re pleased to welcome Ali Shtarbanov to the Hack Chat. Ali is a Ph.D. student at MIT’s famed Media Lab, where he studies Human-Computer Interaction. He’s particularly interested in making soft robotics as fast and easy to prototype as traditional robotics have become, and to this end, he invented FlowIO, an open-source platform for pneumatic control. We’ll use this as a jumping-off point to discuss the whole field of soft robotics, especially where it is now and where Ali sees it going in the future.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, October 27 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a handy time zone converter.

Soldering Iron Plus Camera Gimbal Helps Cancel Out Hacker’s Hand Tremors

June 4, 2021 by Donald Papp 39 Comments

Soldering requires steady hands, so when [Jonathan Gleich] sadly developed a condition called an essential tremor affecting his hands, soldering became much more difficult. But one day, while [Jonathan] was chatting with a friend, they were visited by the Good Ideas Fairy and in true hacker fashion, he ended up repurposing a handheld camera stabilizing gimbal to hold a soldering iron instead of a camera or smartphone. Now instead of the gimbal cancelling out hand movements to keep a camera steady, it instead helps keep a soldering iron steady.

While the inner workings of the cheap gimbal unit didn’t need modification, there were a couple of things that needed work before the project came together. The first was to set up a way to quickly and easily connect and disconnect the soldering iron from the gimbal. Thanks to a dovetail-like connector, the iron can be safely stored in its regular holster and only attached when needed.

The other modification is more subtle. The stabilizer motors expect to be managing something like a smartphone, but a soldering iron is both lighter and differently balanced. That meant that the system worked, but not as well as it needed to. After using some small lead weights to tweak the mass and center of gravity of the soldering iron — making it feel and move a bit more like an iPhone, as far as the gimbal was concerned — results were improved.

The soldering iron stabilizer works well enough for now, but we don’t doubt that [Jonathan] already has further tweaks in mind. This is a wonderful repurposing of a consumer device into an assistive aid, so watch it in action in the short video embedded below.

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Digital Expression Via Harmonica

September 15, 2020 by Brian McEvoy 11 Comments

There is a good chance you clicked on this article with a mouse, trackball, trackpad, or tapped with your finger. Our hands are how most of us interact with the digital world, but that isn’t an option for everyone, and [Shu Takahashi] wants to give them a new outlet to express themselves. Some folks who cannot use their hands will be able to use the Magpie MIDI, which acts as a keyboard, mouse, MIDI device, and eventually, a game controller. This universal Human Interface Device (HID) differs from a mouth-operated joystick because it has air pressure sensors instead of buttons. The sensors can recognize the difference between exhalation and inhalation, so the thirteen ports can be neutral, positive, or negative, which is like having twenty-six discrete buttons.

The harmonica mounts on an analog X-Y joystick to move a mouse pointer or manipulate MIDI sound like a whammy bar. [Shu] knows that a standard harmonica has ten ports, but he picked thirteen because all twenty-six letters are accessible by a puff or sip in keyboard mode. The inputs outnumber the Arduino Leonardo’s analog inputs, so there is a multiplexor to read all of them. There was not enough time to get an Arduino with enough native ports, like a Teensy, with HID support baked in. Most of the structure is 3D printed, so parts will be replaceable and maybe even customizable.

Even with two working hands, we like to exercise different hardware, but the harmonica is a nifty tool to have attached to your computer.

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2020 Hackaday Prize Hack Chat With Majenta Strongheart

May 25, 2020 by Dan Maloney 3 Comments

Join us on Wednesday, May 27 at noon Pacific for the 2020 Hackaday Prize Hack Chat with Majenta Strongheart!

It hardly seems possible, but the Hackaday Prize, the world’s greatest hardware design contest, is once more at hand. But the world of 2020 is vastly different than it was last year, and the challenges we all suddenly face have become both more numerous and more acute as a result. We’ve seen hackers rise to the challenges presented by the events of the last few months in unexpected ways, coming up with imaginative solutions and pressing the limits of what’s possible. What this community can do when it is faced with a real challenge is inspiring.

Now it’s time to take that momentum and apply it to some of the other problems the world is facing. For the 2020 Hackaday Prize, we’re asking you to throw your creativity at challenges in conservation, disaster response, assistive technology, and renewable resources. We’ve teamed up with leading non-profits in those areas, each of which has specific challenges they need you to address.

With $200,000 in prize money at stake, we’re sure you’re going to want to step up to the challenge. To help get you started, Majenta Strongheart, Head of Design and Partnerships at Supplyframe, will drop by the Hack Chat with all the details on the 2020 Hackaday Prize. Come prepared to pick her brain on what needs doing and how best to tackle the problems that the Prize is trying to address. And find out about all the extras, like the “Dream Team” microgrants, the wild card prize, and the community picks.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, May 27 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have a handy time zone converter.

Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.

An Open Assistive Robotic Arm To Help People Feed Themselves

December 12, 2019 by Gerrit Coetzee 7 Comments

Despite being otherwise capable, not everyone is able to feed themselves. [Julien]’s robot arm project aims to bring this crucial independence back to those people. Assistive devices in this space do exist, but as always they’re prohibitively expensive and the approval process is a nightmare. The development of the arm started by working closely with people who needed it at a local hospital. We note with approval, quite a few cardboard mock-ups to get the size and shape right before more formal work was done in CAD.

The robot arm only has to support a very light payload so its construction can be quite light. A frame of steel rods or plywood is all that’s required. We like how the motion is transferred from stepper motors to the joints of the arm by generously sized timing belts allowing the weight of the arm to remain towards the base. The team behind the project has gotten it to a point, but they’re hoping it will inspire community involvement as they move forward with it.

It’s worth noting, this is not the first assistive eating aid we’ve covered.