Events

Tidal Odessy: featuring FMDG School Laptop Orchestra “FiLOrk”

Nonvisual Soldering Workshop at ITP

Led by: Lauren Race
Date/Location: NYU ITP, 2/28/20 – 3/1/20, 370 Jay Street, New York, NY 11201
A weekend-long workshop—Friday, February 28 – Sunday, March 1, 2020—at NYU ITP offered students the opportunity to learn nonvisual soldering techniques from Dr. Joshua Miele: founder of the Blind Arduino Project, former Associate Director of the Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Low Vision and Blindness, and former Creative Director of LightHouse Labs. In addition to gaining hands-on experience with a soldering iron, students were guided in building their own accessible continuity tester—one of the most fundamental and flexible tools for electronics work without vision. 

Tactile Design for Accessibility

Led by: Lauren Race
Date/Location: A11y NYC, 12/3/19, 1384 Broadway, New York, NY 10018
The goal of this workshop was to promote inclusive design and accessibility awareness by framing tactile design as a useful collaborative tool and use case, provide hands-on experience by inviting attendees to design and produce their own tactile designs using microcapsule paper and a fuser.

Designing Tactile Graphics for Accessible Media Products

Led by: Lauren Race
Date/Location: NYCML’19, 9/26/19 | frog, 8/22/19 | Hunter College, 8/9/19 
This hands-on workshop shows the basics of designing tactile graphics for physical computing, with the goal of helping participants understand the latest best practices in producing accessible technologies for diverse user needs. First, this session highlights recent NYU Ability Project case studies to provide an overview of accessibility standards. Then, working in small groups, participants design their own tactile graphic using a state-of-the-art Swell Form Machine, a printing device that creates maps, diagrams, text and other tactile graphics to help revolutionize the production of media products for blind and low vision learners. Attendees can take home the graphic they produced, and are encouraged to share these accessible production methods and standards within their professional networks.

Assistive Technologies workshop at NYU Shanghai

Led by: Anita Perr and Marianne Petit
Date / Location: NYU Shanghai IMA Program, March, 2016
Using seed grant funding from the NYU Global Institute, Marianne Petit and Anita Perr organized and ran a 2-day assistive technology workshop at NYU Shanghai in March, 2016. Professors Petit and Perr are co-founding directors of the NYU Ability Project, along with Professor Dubois. At the time of this workshop, Professor Petit was the Director of the Interactive Media Arts (IMA) Program at NYU Shanghai and Professor Perr was teaching on NYU’s New York City Campus. Guest speakers, including faculty, clinicians, researchers, and technologists from the United States and Asia, talked about the current state of various assistive technologies. Presenters also participated in learning activities along with NYU Shanghai students and local stakeholders about topics such as technologies for people who are blind or have low vision, the use of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, exoskeletons, and advanced 3D printing prostheses. Focusing on the interactions between development, manufacture and use of assistive technologies, attendees also participated in workshops to problem solve and explore fabrication of assistive technology solutions. Since this workshop, NYU Ability Project collaborations have continued between on the New York City campus and IMA at NYU Shanghai.