Kestrell

Last night I stayed up past my bedtime to watch the Webstream of the presentation for the MIT mechanical engineering students developing an accessible game.

Much to my surprised delight, the interface was super easy, so listening to the presentations was lots of fun. Another team developed goggles that allowed people with mobility impairments to use blinks to call up menus and make selections us on devices such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Prices were kept reasonably low: $35 for the accessible game platform, under $200 for the blink goggles. I really loved the fact that these technologies were being developed to be used with mainstream devices because, let's face it, a lot of the specialized disability tech sucks on an epic scale (can black holes be said to suck?).

It was also really exciting to be able to see a viable material product that was close to completion. A lot of accessibility consulting involves committees and white papers and ephemeral objects that you will probably never see or hear about again. With mechanical engineers you can offer a suggestion one week and a week or two later you get to hold the result.

The experience definitely got me interested in perhaps participating in some other similar projects.

Just as an aside: whoever was the mcee for the program deserves a Shameless Punster Award for never hesitating to keep lowering the bar.

Also, I took notes.

And I'll be sharing those later.

Because you are my friends.

And I like you.