Timeline / Calendar

My project work for Michael Schnieder's Assistive Technonogy Workshop class at NYU's ITP program, will be a continued development of a project from Marianne Petit's Developing Assistive Technology class. The main idea and purpose of "Therapy Incentives through Play" http://itp.nyu.edu/show/detail.php?project_id=736 will be the same, I beleive, unless there is a compelling reason to change direction. This project was originally developed by Mike Bukhin and myself and I am presently continuing with it's development. What I will attempt to do in Michael's class is a refinement for the sake of ease of use, an expantion of incentive interactions and a platform that is more robust for the sake of continued use with as little maintenance as possible. My preliminary timeline or calendar for further development of this this project will be posted shortly and will be revised, no doubt as realizations occur. For the immediacy, my research is about possible replacement parts for some components of "Therapy Incentives through Play".

1. The Tx/Rx modules are indvidual components, triggered by reaching resistive thresholds coded into 18f452 microcontrollers. I would like to try replacing them with RFPIC12f675 microcontrollers for the sake of size and being able to equip more devices remotely.

2. The triggering threshold is now reached by pulling a Merlin Stretch Sensor a sufficient distance. It works quite well and has withstood a fair amount of punishment in tests and at public demonstations. The sensor loses ir resiliency over time and becomes less responsive, needing to be replaced. As this component is only available from England, replacement and replacement costs will be an issue. Switch and potentiometer options are likely choices .

3. A mechanically retractable bungee or other resistance type chord might replace the current component offering a method less dependent on a stretch sensor.

4. Reduction in size of resistance platform for faster setup and ease of use by Therapists.

5. Utilization of different materials for platform and incentive objects which in a hospital, clinical or institutional setting, would be appropriately hygenic. The current model utilized fabric covered toys and a fabric covered resistance platform which, we learned, would not be acceptable to pass specific audits in these settings as these surfaces are not able to be properly cleaned.

6. Expand the function to include musical and visual images. (after November)

7. I'll be returning to demonstrate at the Sony Wonder Tech Lab in November and would be aiming to have most of these issues resolved by then.