In:Accessible Exhibition

Drum Garden

Nick Caruso and Maxwell Glenn

Nick's Brief: The Drum Garden: a device that brings a drum set to a wheelchair without having to carry around big and heavy equipment. The Drum Garden was designed for Sara, who is a teenage student at the Cotting School and she has cerebral palsy. This device is designed to help her be able to drum without getting out of her wheelchair. She has difficulty with holding onto things and sometimes with controlling her muscles. She can use her left foot really well; in fact, she writes and makes paintings with her foot. She has the same a good sense of humor and social awareness, as any teenager and she has a lot of energy. When asked her if she was interested in anything musical. She said, “Drumming”. The Drum Garden is not a regular drum set. It attaches not only to Sara’s wheelchair, but also to other drums . A wire is connected to Sara’s wrist by a conductive fabric wristband which all connect to a computer. The computer provides the sound by a through makey makey software. Using PVC pipes, connected to a drum frame and a clamp for other drums, the makey makey wires go along the pipes while being connected to conductive fabric which comes back to the circuit . Sara controls what sound and rhythm is through the pads and pedals. The drums can help not only Sara, but anyone who wants to drum but has trouble with their muscles or is in a wheelchair that can't drum on a real kit. The hope is to highlight the way music enriches people’s lives and that it is something anyone can engage in, This reminds people that music is everywhere and anyone can play music. It shows how important music is and it is possible to give that to anyone, no matter what physical difficulties one has. 

Drum Garden

Nick Caruso and Maxwell Glenn

Nick's Brief: The Drum Garden: a device that brings a drum set to a wheelchair without having to carry around big and heavy equipment. The Drum Garden was designed for Sara, who is a teenage student at the Cotting School and she has cerebral palsy. This device is designed to help her be able to drum without getting out of her wheelchair. She has difficulty with holding onto things and sometimes with controlling her muscles. She can use her left foot really well; in fact, she writes and makes paintings with her foot. She has the same a good sense of humor and social awareness, as any teenager and she has a lot of energy. When asked her if she was interested in anything musical. She said, “Drumming”. The Drum Garden is not a regular drum set. It attaches not only to Sara’s wheelchair, but also to other drums . A wire is connected to Sara’s wrist by a conductive fabric wristband which all connect to a computer. The computer provides the sound by a through makey makey software. Using PVC pipes, connected to a drum frame and a clamp for other drums, the makey makey wires go along the pipes while being connected to conductive fabric which comes back to the circuit . Sara controls what sound and rhythm is through the pads and pedals. The drums can help not only Sara, but anyone who wants to drum but has trouble with their muscles or is in a wheelchair that can't drum on a real kit. The hope is to highlight the way music enriches people’s lives and that it is something anyone can engage in, This reminds people that music is everywhere and anyone can play music. It shows how important music is and it is possible to give that to anyone, no matter what physical difficulties one has. 

Video

Christopher Kitchen

Video

Isabelle Ramras

Amro's Film (Breaking Bread)

Christopher Kitchen

Presentation

Alexander Athanasopoulos and Christopher Kitchen
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The Calming Chair

Isabelle Ramras

Izzy: 

The Night Light Blankie exhibition gives the user a chance to experience what it may be like for a child in the hospital and how the Night Light Blankie can comfort them. The Night Light Blankie is a weighted children's blanket with an LED-illuminated canopy that can be pulled over the child's head to comfort them in the hospital which is often an extremely scary environment. The installation helps the community of Cambridge engage with the Night Light Blankie and inform them about the stresses a child faces during a stay in the hospital. To try the blankie, a visitor sits in the chair designed specifically for testing and using the Night Light Blankie. Bars along either side of the chair attach to the blanket, hooks secure the blanket when it is pulled up, and a ring around the back of the chair supports the canopy when it is up. The user sits in the chair and pulls the blanket over their lap to appreciate its weighted comfort. If they would like to, visitors can also flip the canopy up over their head for a fuller experience of calming isolation. 

The hope is that raising awareness will bring the Night Light Blankie to children's hospitals all over. The exhibit may make people wonder how else they can help children who have a hard time adjusting to the hospital setting, as well as how else this product could be used in other settings. Children with sensory issues or autism who are often extremely sensitive could also greatly benefit from the Night Light Blankie at home, so the chair is installed in a friendly bedroom setting.

Presentation

Isabella LaCava and Jackson Danforth

Izzy: An exhibit for the Drum Garden, a portable drum set that attaches to someone's wheeled chair,  that aims to awaken empathy for the user of the drums. The exhibit conceals the drum set behind a curtain, which reveals only its mysterious silhouette among other instruments, in order to create the impression of inviting the visitor into a musical community where they can play along with others. 

The Drum Garden was created for a girl named Sara who has cerebral palsy. The device attaches to her wheeled chair to give her the ability to play the drums since she would not be able to reach a  stand-alone drum kit.  The product will be exhibited at City Hall in Cambridge, to show the general public what students work on at NuVu and raise awareness of the need for such work.  The exhibit helps people understand how someone can feel held back because they have a certain disability or are in a wheeled chair and therefore the importance of devices such as the Drum Garden. The exhibit has a curtain with a  mysterious silhouette projected onto the outside. Then when the visitor passes to the other side of the curtain, they meet with flowers and a spotlight on the chair, bringing everything to life and making the chair extremely exciting, representing how happy and lively Sarah feels after being given the ability to play the drums. The Drum Garden is also placed between a piano and guitar, representing the concept of being apart of a community. 

Presentation

Nick Caruso and Kevin Brown

Kevin's Brief:

The OCDevice and the Skills Vest's exhibits were made to display the Skills Vest and the OCDevice created by Nuvu students to help people with cerebral palsy and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The Skills Vest's exhibit is an interactive exhibit that you can use special gloves to simulate CP. The OCD Cube's exhibit is also an interactive exhibit where you can interact with the environment around the table with the cube as well as the cube. These exhibits were created to show people who suffer from the conditions what is being done about it. The Skills Vest is helping kids who have CP to define their fine motor skills. The OCD Cube was made for helping control people's OCD. The exhibition was made so that people could find out more about NUVU and maybe even help contribute to the production of the product. For the Skills Vest, the table around it would have slots that the trial pieces could fit into and a place for the CP gloves to slide on. The OCD Cube has an environment that is uncanny and distracting to be in, it looks like a normal home but there are things about it that will get on your nerves. The picture frames will all be tilted just a little bit, the table will wobble, the light switches will all be in different variations, and the lamp shade would be tilted overall making the environment put you in the mindset of someone with OCD.

slides

Teju Kim and 2 OthersIsabel Whiteside
Ava Rizika
exhibition thesis.001.png
Isabel's Brief
A collection of three exhibitions showcasing wearables custom-designed for three individuals, in order to provide viewers with perspective as they become immersed in the personalities of people with disabilities.

This exhibition aims to improve accessibility for and inclusiveness of people with a range of disabilities by providing enabled people with perspective and understanding surrounding disability. The wearables exhibited were designed for three dancers, Krishna, who is blind, Tiffany, who has Jarcho-Levin Syndrome, and Jerron, who has cerebral palsy that affects the left side of his body. The exhibits for these wearables do not directly state their conditions, which gives each one a more mysterious, unique feel. Krishna's wearable is shield because she always wanted to shield and protect people, especially to help them feel comfortable when stepping outside of their comfort zone. Tiffany's is called the sunrise because she has a big, bright personality despite being very short because of her condition. Jerron's wearable is called the Spatial Expander because he always felt like he was put into a "box" by society because he is disabled. He wants to show people that he is capable of doing more than they think he can.

Teju's Brief
A display of costumes that are custom-made to represent the personalities of three dancers with disabilities.

The Juxtapose Exhibition displays three wearables made for three individual dancers so that the viewer can experience what the dancers feel during moments of struggle and their feelings of happiness when dancing. Jerron and Tiffany are both a part of Heidi Latsky Dance, a dance company that has both abled and disabled dancers. Jerron has Cerebral Palsy that affects the left side of his body and Tiffany has Jarcho Levin Syndrome, which is a genetic disorder that causes bone malformation in the spinal cord and ribs.The third dancer, Krishna, is based in New York and is almost fully blind.  Each wearable has its own unique display deeply influenced by each dancer's personal traits. That includes tunnel-like structures, walls, quilts, different colored lights and the piece itself. Jerron often felt that as a child he never had any space, so he had to make it for himself so he wanted his wearable to take up space. The Spacial Expander is inside of a tunnel that the visitor has to walk through. The tunnel is made up of several different shaped doorways to make the participant feel uncomfortable and confined. At the end of the tunnel is a light, spacious cloth "room" where the wearable is displayed. Tiffany has a very large and bright personality who loves the sun. The Sunrise display showcases a small figure of her wearing the Sunrise wearable against the wall. Infront of the figure is a light that glows in a sun shape with a large shadow of Tiffany in the center to represent her bright personality.  And Krishna makes quilts and gives them out to the community, and tries to shield others. Krishna's wearable called the Shield. The wearable is displayed in a hallway covered in black and white hexagonal quilts.   The displays create an experience that visitors can walk through and interact with. With the hope that visitors will leave with an understanding of the difficulties, the dancers face and overcome.



Ava Rizika's Brief:

A display of custom-designed for three dancers, portraying each dancer's disability and personality.

The In:Accessible Exhibition displays projects that were designed for 3 three dancers, each of which have a with physical disability disabilities.: Jerron has cerebral palsy, Tiffany has Jerko Levin Syndrome, and Krishna is blind. Each dancer's exhibit focuses in on their personalities, disabilities, and hobbies and incorporates these elements into the display of the costumes . Jerron, who has cerebral palsy, often feels like he feels limited by people's assumptions about him because of his disability. Dancing frees him from this feeling and shows people that he can do what fully abled people can do.Tiffany, who has a shortened torso due to Jarcho-Levin Syndrome, which means that she has no torso, is a strong woman who is incredible to talk to because of her big personality that fills up a room. She loves nature, especially the sun, and says that she gets her energy from the sun's rays.  Krishna, who is blind, will often run into things, and isn't able to avoid that run into her, so sometimes she feels that she needs a protective shield. Although she does not have a shield, In turn, she tries to act as one for protect others in the community, she does this by weaving hexagon print blankets and giving them to people, and by helping people pursue their dreams.


When the visitor looks at Jerron's exhibit, they will see a spacious rectangular cube. When they walk inside they will have the illusion that the hallway is much tighter than it actually is, and will feel claustrophobic. The hallway opens up to a larger room that displays the costume, to show that dancing frees Jerron from the constraints of disability. This shows dancing helps jerron to feel like his disability isn't holding him back. The dancer Tiffany loves the sun, so in her exhibit, a big circular light shines on the wall and casts the shadow of a cutout of Tiffany in her costume inside the "Sun." For Krishna,  a  hallway with walls that are made from fabric with hexagons on it symbolizes the quilts she makes for people in her community. When the visitor walks in it will be dark, which will make them nervous, but the fabrics will get lighter as they walk through, guided by a ballet bar that the participant will grab onto which will lead that leads them through the hallway. The first half of the ballet bar will be covered in sandpaper that gets progressively more fine as they walk through up until the point in which the visitor reaches the open area where the displayed costume is being shown. Here, the sandpaper is at its smoothest, and when you exit the open area, the ballet bar will go back to normal. The design of the ballet bar is meant to show how her blindness and reliance on touch is lifted when she dances. In most museums, the pieces are displayed traditionally with the piece in the middle, and text explaining it on the side. In this exhibition, the visitor gets a better understanding of the project through an interactive display. The exhibition expands awareness into the community of the value of supporting this kind of effort and increases compassion for people with disabilities