Entries Tagged Ideas

Our games and tools for kids with disabilities should run on whatever computer they have at the school (typically an old PC running some version of Windows or a Mac). One alternative to cross-platform testing might be a LiveCD that boots some OS (say Linux) and runs our software. Then our development environment is fixed and we’re relying on the OS to cover over hardware differences. Pete and I spent a bit of time this last weekend trying our various LiveCDs to see how little memory they could be made to use.

We used VMware as the test platform and tried Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Fedora 8, Puppy Linux, and Damn Small Linux. Something Ubuntu-based would suit me best because it is the environment I know. The results of our casual testing appear to be that 128 megabytes of memory is about the minimum for for the Ubuntu or Fedora livecds to boot properly. That isn’t to say we couldn’t make our own that would require less. Pete found Reconstructor which claims to make LiveCDs configured however you like. I’m guessing we could strip things down to the point that there isn’t even a window manager. If I could get a single OpenGL rendering context that filled the screen I’d be pretty happy for most of our stuff.

I also tried Puppy Linux and DSL. I couldn’t get Puppy to boot live in less than 64 megabytes. DSL would boot live in 32 megabytes but I couldn’t do much else. I’ve ready that PyGame can be made to work under Puppy. I’m hesitant to go in that direction just because I’d be giving up the very supportive Ubuntu community and repositories.

None of these is as promising as I had hoped. I think I’ll take a LiveCD with me when I visit Andrew’s Elementary later this week and see if I can get one to boot on the PC’s there.

Pros of LiveCDs:

• We’re in charge of the environment our software runs in.
• We’d never have to test on Vista
• No worries about the IT department being unwilling to install the software (lots of teachers complain about this).
• Simple for teacher’s to use with no complicated installation instructions

Cons of LiveCDs:

• Apparently requires a pretty beefy machine with 64 to 128 megabytes of memory and CD drive.
• Unclear how many different hardware configurations are really supported in a strict plug-and-play way (no way I’m going to get teachers to type options for the boot command).
• They would be impossible for most users to download because they are so big.
• Intel only (but that hardly matters anymore)

Pete sent a pointer to this video demonstrating drumming with the Wii Remote.

Over at Gizmodo is a nice video demonstration of 3D head-tracking for desktop VR using the Wii remote.

Karen says:

I just got back from 3.5 days at a camp with 15 adolescents with significant disabilities. Most use AAC devices and some sort of alternate computer input. One teenage girl explained to me that she is pretty good in math but she has two problems as she tries to tackle high school math.

1. She needs on onscreen calculator that is scanning accessible and allows her to send the answer from the window on the calculator to the document she has open on her computer. For the most part, her documents are actually scanned omni-page or pdf files - she steps through answer fields using a tab key. Right now, the only option is to copy, minimize, activate the form, and paste - that is really hard for her.

2. She needs some sort of math program that allows her to show her work. There is a program called Math Pad that kind of lets you do this, but it stops at simple multiplications and division.

Also, I’ve had teachers of the visually impaired ask me for calculators that would enable kids to show their work.

Wiimote, Rocking Horse Combined to Create Makeshift Racing Sim. Variations on this would be so great for kids with disabilities.

Pete pointed me to CoScripter, a tool from IBM intended to automate web processes. He and I have been talking for a while about “grass roots” accessibility in which end-users are enabled to easily make and share accessibility improvements for web sites. CoScripter looks like a step in that direction.

The cre8txt keyboard might work for one handed computing apps and their software to decode SMS slang might be fun too.

Flexible keyboards like this, this and this are super cheap and readily available. I wonder if we could use them to make an alternative keyboard for people with physical, visual, or cognitive disabilities?

I’m thinking we could turn the keyboard over (keys down) and glue it to a thin board. I’m guessing the back of these things is pretty smooth. You’d put your tactile or visual overlay over the back of the keyboard. Now when the user presses, multiple keys will likely be activated. But we can handle that with a special keyboard layout as described here for Windows. I’m pretty sure there are comparable capabilities for Macs and Linux.

We could even define some sort of simple overlay maker that makes it simple to define and use specialized layouts. I’m guessing we could only support relatively large regions with this simple cheap approach.

I think making music with loops could make an exciting activity for kids with a variety of disabilities. Unfortunately I know next to nothing about it. I’m collecting links to useful looking pages so I can think about ways to enable kids to play with music.

Loop-based Music Composition with Linux in two parts.

Here’s an idea for a simple game to encourage movement to music. I’m drawing from our Comp 80 class ideas for Generalized DDR.

In this game the player moves to music. Their score depends on how well their movement is synchronized with the music and on how many different moves they made. A more advanced version allows them to play along with the music though various delays will have to be overcome to enable their sounds to be sync’ed with the music. The system keeps track of their score and rewards improvement. Perhaps new tunes get unlocked like in DDR.

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