http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Rock-Band-Drum-kit-8quot-Mesh-Head-Mod-Tutor/

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We had the task to help out Nico. He has trouble with zippering up things and handling small tasks.  Izzy R and I came up with 3 sketches that we turned into prototypes.  Our first sketch/ idea that we came up with was to create a creative building blocks kit. Instead of it being like legos where you pop them in together, they had to either be zippered or buttoned to come together. This would be a way for him to practice those tasks. The next idea was to create an easier clip-on tool that was bigger and less tedious to grasp.  Then an add-on would be two thin pieces of any material that guides the metal piece to go into the zipper. What we will begin to work on this week is more prototypes and editing our ideas.

This past week the 13 or 14 of us went to The Cotting School in Lexington (The first school in the nation for children with disabilities), and got to meet a couple students / participants of a non-profit called Waypoint Adventure (an adventure/growth/learning program for people with disabilities). It was great meeting everyone and getting to know them, and towards the end of the week we began  working on projects for assisting our interviewees, whether it be day to day struggles, or simply helping out with something that they've always wanted to do. Izzy and I are starting to work on a project for a boy named Tanis, who has muscular dystrophy, a condition that causes progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass. While at the Cotting School, his teacher told us that he had trouble raising his hand in class, and through some divergent/convergent thinking, Izzy and I are now working on a project to help raise his hand in class. Tanis sits in a wheelchair, so we are pretty sure that our final product will feature some sort of attachment to his wheelchair. So far, our prototype has featured a pulley system that he can use to help raise his hand, and another idea was to create an electric powered device that responds to him giving a little bit of energy with his arm. One of our main focuses is to make sure that Tanis can retain a sense of independence with this action, so we do not want the device to do everything for him.
Next week, I think we should be able to begin on our final project, and have a good understanding on what we want to achieve. I also think we should begin engineering the final product in order to ensure progress.  We'll have the opportunity to visit Tanis again, and ask him any questions about what he'd like to see out of our process and final product. Very excited for what's to come.

Precedents Week 1

         For our project Lucy and I are solving a problem for a 15 year old boy named Nico. Nico attends the Cotting School and makes visits to waypoint often. He has many hobbies such as science, engineering, being active and especially playing basketball. One of the biggest problems he faces is that when he plays basketball it is hard for him to push his wheel chair and dribble the basketball at the same time.  Lucy and I have come up with a number of solutions to fix this problem of his. Our first Idea was to have a joystick that controls the chair such as moving it forward and steering it to where every he wanted to go. However, we realized that would take way too long to make and it would basically turn his chair into an electric chair which isn't what we are trying to do because one could buy one online. Our more realistic solution was to install a crank on to his chair. This crank would attach on to the side of his wheel and could serve as two purposes. We were thinking that it could act as a switch that could enable or disable a mechanism that would either lock both wheels in sync when pushed from any side or be used as an actual crank and propel him forward (faster).( However we are thinking about sticking with the first idea of the wheel syncing/not syncing device. )Next week aka this coming week, I think Lucy and I are planning on finalizing our prototype and then taking then necessary next steps in making this device.