Maze Day is for visually impaired and blind students in grades K-12, their parents and teachers. Your students will enjoy fun and educational computer applications developed especially for them. UNC students will learn how well their accessible applications work with real users. And everyone will have a good time!
This year, in addition to many of the old favorites, we expect to have many amazing new activities, including:
- Composing music on the DDR pad.
- Two player Simon combined with an upper body workout.
- Guitar Hero made accessible.
- Life size and computer mazes.
- Carolina Rocker: A rocking-horse (or therapy ball) game that combines exercise and acoustic localization.
- Carolina Beat: An accessible version of Dance Dance Revolution for a good exercise workout to music.
- Virtual Beep Ball.
- Sweet Beat: an edible drum sequencer.
- A new kind of Braille display.
- SamiSays: a program for recording stories with sound effects.
- And there’s always a little bit more… but you’ll have to attend to see what that is.
Lunch will be provided. Free!
Registration is closed.
Date: Wednesday April 30, 2008
Time: 9am until 2pm
Location: Sitterson Hall on the UNC Chapel Hill campus (click here for directions)
Also, please complete the following forms and bring them with you:
- Photo Consent - We will only include your children in photographs of the event with your permission. We also have the photo consent form in Spanish.
- Experiment Consent - High school and middle school Maze day participants are invited to participate in a fun research study during Maze Day. This study is part of an activity called Metric Olympics where you will estimate the sizes of different things. Not only will you win prizes, but you will help researchers understand how students learn about size and estimation. Interested participants should read and sign the consent letter. Join us in having fun while helping out researchers.
8 comments
[...] Maze Day 2008 will be April 30, [...]
I hope by now you’ve received lots of positive feedback on Maze Day. We had a wonderful and terrific time. Our only regret was that we didn’t have time to repeat our favorites and go back to do the ones we missed. We didn’t miss many, however! The kids were high as kites: accessible, fun and exciting games, talking with other kids with VI, and seeing Mr. Ousley! Thank you so much for putting this together. It was a great day, and one we look forward to repeating next year.
Hi Diane ~ I just want to let you know how much I enjoyed coming to my first MAZE DAY. I wish that my student could have joined the 71+ children that were there for all the fun! The best time for me was watching as the students with VI interacted with the games, especially Carolina Beat! I also enjoyed following one little student on the hunt for “Ramsey Ram” using the EONS. I have to say how impressed I was with the enthusiasm shown by all of the UNC students for their products. It was so nice meeting Gary Bishop, the creator of this event. His passion for what he is providing for our students was certainly evident throughout the entire day. Many thanks for such a wonderful experience! I definitely look forward to next year’s event…
We had so much fun at Maze Day!! It was really special for my student to have an opportunity to play games designed with him in mind! He had a BLAST and it was extra special because his mother got to come see the neat games, too! Keep up the great work! You and your students are really making a difference in the lives of many children!
Maze Day was fun, however, for kids who are totally blind, it was a nightmare on the main floor. There was so much noise from the games and computers, with people talking and going to the bathrooms. The computer games that were on this floor would have greatly benefitted from being in their own rooms, where the students could have really enjoyed the game sounds and interaction from the software created.
Thank you for offering such a wonderful opportunity for our kids. This was our first year participating in the Maze Day events.
You have some outstanding students with such a devotion and energy geared toward developing software and computer games to meet the needs for our students who are blind/visually impaired.
I think the day was such a huge success. I have asked the parents, teachers, and volunteers in our group to please provide feedback to you and your students regarding the specific needs of the children they were with for the day.
Here are some of the comments shared with me on our bus ride back to school. I think our group, for the most part, really enjoyed the activities, however, I believe that with some input into the students’ needs as auditory listeners, the layout of each of the computer games should receive the utmost consideration. There was way too much noise and contradicting noise interference for the Braille Twister, the Sweet Beat, the Carolina Rocker and all of the other computer games on that floor. The openness of the two floors combined, in addition to the registration table, restrooms and Metric Olympics was way too confusing for students who are blind. There was no way for these kids to truly experience these games to the extent that your students’ worked toward achieving input from our kids.
One of my teachers suggested that the computer games should all have used large cursors, so that students who were low vision could have visually identified the cursor on their own.
All games offered before lunch were not offered after lunch and it was disappointing to our staff and students to not be able to attend to these stations.
However, all in all, this was an awesome experience for my staff, teacher, parents and most of all for my students. I just think it could be SO MUCH BETTER if the noise interference weren’t such a distracting issue for these special children.
Thank you for all of your efforts. We look forward to your game downloads.
Thanks Rosemary and Pam for your helpful comments. We hope to be able to spread the exhibits out more next year when the newly constructed Brooks Hall will be available. This year we had to make the best use we could of our limited space. I’m glad you all enjoyed Maze Day. Hopefully next year will be even better.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you so very much for what you are doing for the VI kids. I think that it is a wonderful thing that you do to help out our children and teaching your students all at the same time. My son is Noah (I’m sure you will remember him, he wanted to make an appointment with you so you guys could make a computer program together) and this was the first time we have been to the Maze Day event. I wish I would have heard of it before now because it just blew me away and Noah LOVED it. You and your students deserve all the credit in the world because it takes some one special to care enough about this special group of kids (VI) like you do to come up with such wonderful ideas. I hope to see you again next year.
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