Making "Making" Accessible
Speaker
Amy Hurst
Associate Professor, Information Systems Department, UMBC
When
-
Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)
Video
Video link
Description
Assistive Technologies empower individuals to accomplish tasks they might not be able to do otherwise. Unfortunately, a large percentage of Assistive Technologies end up unused or abandoned, leaving people with solutions that are inappropriate for their needs. My students and I are working to help more people gain access to the Assistive Technology they need by empowering non-engineers to “Do-It-Yourself” (DIY) and create, modify, or build their own solutions. In this talk I will discuss our work understanding the potential and reality of using 3D printing to create DIY Assistive Technologies from both the clinician and end-user perspective. I will also discuss several of the challenges non-engineers face learning these technologies and introduce 3D modeling tools that we developed for this population.
Speaker's Bio
Amy Hurst is an associate professor of Human-Centered Computing in the Information Systems Department at UMBC and studies accessibility challenges in real-world settings. Her research focuses on addressing accessibility problems understanding diverse user’s abilities, habits, and preferences. At UMBC she founded the Prototyping and Design Lab (a collaborative making space for technologists and artists) and is an active member of the Interactive Systems Research Center. Amy received her PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from the HCII at Carnegie Mellon in 2010 and has an undergraduate in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.
Speaker's Website
http://amyhurst.com
Host
Jen Mankoff