Shutes and Spectacles

brief

Tom Carey

video

Tom Carey
MVI_9167.MOV

Process

Richard Lourie

     At the start of our studio, we visited Perkins school for the blind and saw an occupational therapy session. This patient was having trouble putting things close to her face or having her face touched, but she needed to be comfortable with that for her visits to the doctor. Donna, the therapist, was trying to desensitize her by touching different parts of her face and shining a light near her eyes. We wanted to speed up this desensitization process.

     Our project turns this desensitization process into a game. It is also a way to practice the motion of putting a prosthetic eye in. It has a light that the OT can control, like the doctor would. The child would put a marble into a hole in a pair of glasses and then it would go down a marble run and into a bowl.

Our first iteration was very flimsy, bulkey and unreliable, so we decided to add more reliable connections between ramps, we made a 3D printed part that connects them all (in a later iteration). We also made dowel holders that attached to the base to hold up the ramps and the top. To make our project useful for more children, which was a suggestion presented whilst presenting our first real iteration, we decided to incorperate eye holes for both spectacles in the already more realistic glasses. Next, we wanted to be able to simulate the eye doctors office more accurately, so we incorperated an LED light. Finally, we decided to "spice up" the marble run by including textures on the ramps to vary the sounds exerted by it; and then we swapped a 3D printed bowl for the wooden box for the marble. All in all, we made many modifications which have positively impacted the project.