BRIANNA: Hello, everybody.
It is 10 o'clock, so I'm going to go ahead and get started.
For those of you who I don't know, my name's Brianna Blaser.
I work with a program called DO IT at the University
of Washington.
DO IT stands for disabilities, opportunities, internetworking,
and technology.
And we work a lot on the intersection
of disability and STEM.
And so one of the projects that we have is funded by the United
Engineering Foundation, is a project to think more about how
we talk about accessibility within engineering
and building community among folks interested in that topic,
and so through this project, we're
doing a series of webinars, including today's
as well as we have an online community practice and some--
we'll be writing some resources that will be on our website,
as well.
So I'll share a link to that in the chat
if you're interested in learning more,
and there'll be information-- you'll
get an email after the webinar with an evaluation
and a little more information on that
if you're interested in engaging more with us.
So I'm really excited about today's webinar
with Dave Jaffe from Stanford.
He's been a really active participant in these webinars
that we've had this year, and I've really appreciated
his comments and participation.
And so it's a great opportunity to have
him present on his perspectives on assistive technology
and the design process.
Dave's an instructor at Stanford University,
and for the past 13 years he's taught Perspectives
in Assistive Technology, a course that
explores the design, development,
and use of technology that benefits people
with disabilities and older adults.
In addition to his course, he's involved in other Stanford
courses and student projects that
involve assistive technology.
So from there, I will let Dave, take it over.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Hello.
OK.
All right.
I just shared my screen, and bring up my slides.
OK.
OK, is everybody seeing that?
Yeah?
SPEAKER 2: No.
BRIANNA: Yes.
SPEAKER 2: There, yes.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Oh, OK.
A little bit of a delay.
Well first of all, Thank you Brianna,
for the opportunity of presenting this webinar.
And I want to say hello to everybody out in Zoom Land.
And let's move forward here.
So a little bit about me, I got my undergraduate degree
in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan
and a degree in biomedical engineering from Northwestern.
And here's an image of what I looked like back then.
And after I graduated Northwestern,
I was employed at the VA hospital in Hines,
outside Chicago, for about 5 and 1/2 years.
And then I moved out to California almost 40 years ago
to work at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.
We had a center called the Rehabilitation Research
and Development Center.
And I did that for a long time.
The center developed technology that helped veterans
with disability, and we took advantage of new technology
like robotics and embedded systems and stuff like that.
And about 13 years ago, I moved over to Stanford,
just down the road, where I have my own course called
Perspectives in Assistive Technology.
And I also help out in a bunch of other courses.
Some of them actually have student projects
in assistive technology.
And so this is the third week of the year,
and I've already had like four different groups contact me
about their student projects.
OK, so guys who are old enough, and girls,
remember Watch Mr. Wizard.
And that's what inspired me to get
into engineering and science.
I was an early home computer adopter.
This is my setup back in 1978.
And I always tell the story about a meeting where
everybody in the Chicago area who had a computer, you know,
met together, and the 10 of us shared one table.
But now I'm basically at Stanford
in the role of a lecturer teaching
about assistive technology.
So here are some of the agenda items
I'm going to be talking about today.
I want to mention here that a lot of this
is sort of my philosophy.
So if you like it, you know, you can adopt it and use it.
If it doesn't match with the way your brain
works or your philosophy, you're welcome to reject it.
But I just throw it out there as my perspective on these things.
So let's get started.
You know, the first thing is you hear
a lot of talk about assistive technology and accessibility
and stuff.
And so the first thing I'd like to do
is sort of tell you, in my mind, what the difference is.
So accessibility, again, this is my definition,
is a property of a device.
It's a design criteria, goal or constraint or feature
that allows people of differing abilities
to share and use common resources.
So the examples of different abilities
are sensory impairments, cognition, language
impairments, and even location.
If you're not in the right location,
maybe it's hard to participate unless you have Zoom.
And examples of common resources are
all of the infrastructure we see around us, including buildings,
transportation systems, includes computer products, including
consumer products including computers and software,
institutions, including schools, places of work,
banks, government facilities, and voting places,
where we all need to get to and to use every day.
Public spaces, cities parks, playgrounds, trails
are all things that should be open to everybody.
And of course, books and the internet
are important resources that everybody uses.
OK.
In many instances, an assistive technology device
can provide access to an otherwise inaccessible
resource.
So that's the relation between the two.
Assistive technology is typically
like a personal device that somebody uses
to gain access to the world.
On the left is a communication system for non-vocal kids.
You press the button, and it speaks.
On the lower right is a Braille notepad.
It has a refreshable Braille display and a Braille keyboard.
Again, these are personal devices,
and typically are used by the individual with a disability.
So it's not a shared device.
Looking at the definition of assistive technology,
most people think about it as a device, a piece of equipment,
or product that can be used to increase, maintain, or improve
the capabilities of individuals with disabilities.
Nice definition, but in my definition,
it includes [AUDIO OUT] noises, but processes
that make these devices available,
and the institutions and facilities and policies that
make this all happen, as well.
So a device is one that has a diagnostic, functional,
adaptive [AUDIO OUT] the California Department
of Vocational Rehab.
And engineers employ a process to specify, design, test,
and bring to market new assistive technology devices.
So these devices provide greater independence,
increased opportunities for people with disabilities
and older adults.
And how do they do this?
By allowing them to perform tasks
that they were formerly unable to accomplish
or required assistance.
And it's through these altered methods
of interacting with the world that
make this all work together.
But you know, we also use devices every day, all of us
use devices that sort of do the same thing.
We use computers to enable us to communicate.
And that's an alternate method of interacting
with the world around us.
There are new devices coming out all the time that
improve the lives of people with disabilities,
and there are devices coming out all the time that
improve the lives of everybody, including
people with disabilities.
So all this stuff leads me to conclude that everything
is assistive technology.
Not just technology, but the transportation system,
the institutions, the government,
all these networks that we use enable
us to be more than we are.
And we enjoy using them because it enables us to live
the lives that we want to live.
And of course, a really big piece of assistive technology
is Stanford.
Without Stanford and other institutions of learning,
we would not be able to learn, gain knowledge, and get
to the point of being able to benefit other people.
SPEAKER 2: OK.
BRIANNA: [INAUDIBLE]
SPEAKER 2: Thank you.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK.
BRIANNA: [INAUDIBLE]
DAVID L. JAFFE: So a couple quick definitions
of disability.
So I've come up with these, and I've
tried to be inclusive as possible.
So a couple years ago, this was my top definition,
a health condition or impairment that prevents an individual
from taking full advantage of life's opportunities,
such as education, vocation, recreation,
and all the activities of daily living.
And disability actually includes any situation, not just
a health condition, but any situation
that deprives one of taking advantage
of talents and opportunities.
So, you know, this could be--
you could be like a concert pianist,
and if you're living in a place, a country or a planet,
that's at war, you can't practice your talent.
And so for me, that's sort of a disabling situation.
But this is the best inclusive definition of disability
I've seen.
Disability is a normal variation of the human condition.
So you think of all life and all humanity
as being a continuous line, you know,
we're all on that line someplace.
We're all individuals on the normal variation
of the human condition.
I really like this definition because it doesn't separate
disability from ability.
So we're all part of this thing, human condition.
Disability rates vary by all sorts of things--
age, gender, where you live, economic status--
but this is the big thing here, disabilities
may result in a reduced chance for education.
And if you don't have education, you can't get employed.
If you don't have a job, you're not making money,
and you're basically in poverty.
So this is the huge effect of disability.
Lots of people with disability live in poverty.
And the other thing to notice is that people are getting older.
The whole nation, the whole world in general
is getting older.
And disability increases with age.
So we should be aware of that.
So here's a question I ask my students.
Identify a large group of individuals
who spend lots of time in institutions
before they can contribute to society.
And the answer is students.
You know, I mean, how much time have you
spent going to school from maybe age 4 to age 21, 25?
And so it's again getting to the point
where you have enough information and knowledge
and skills to benefit society.
If we only had downloadable skills
like they had in The Matrix, you know,
you get plugged into a computer, and in 10 seconds
you can fly a helicopter, that would be great.
Think of all the added time we would
have to help our fellow men--
and women-- if we gained knowledge quicker than we
do now.
It's such a laborious and expensive process.
So disability, even superheroes have disability.
Here, we see Superman with green kryptonite.
And there's other people with disabilities.
There's this Jean-Luc Picard character
on the bottom here in a power wheelchair.
And here he is in like a jet-powered wheelchair,
and there's this other guy in a manual chair.
And it looks like, you know, there's
exoskeleton being used here.
So you know, everybody, even superheroes, have disabilities.
A little bit about universal design.
It's a design strategy meant to build
devices that will be workable for a larger market of people.
So the usual way of showing this is to--
well, let me see if I can--
whoops, I didn't want to do that.
The reason for doing this is it helps everybody.
If you can build a device that everybody can use,
the market is larger, you get more sales,
and everybody's happy.
It doesn't always work out.
I'll tell you some reasons why it doesn't work later.
So one big accessibility design example I want to show you
is here at Stanford.
So this site here was a building, a library.
They tore it down, and they put in a park here.
And the park is like a sunken park.
And so how do you get down the stairs
if you're a person with a disability?
Well, what they've done is build this nice spiral walkway down
to the bottom.
And that's just really nice.
Everybody uses that.
I've seen people with strollers, people with wheelchairs
use that.
So that's a really good example of universal design.
And here's some others.
We always talk about the OXO products, plugs that
are easy to remove by pulling.
We have this faucet that you just
touch to turn on the water.
And then we have this stairway here,
which has a ramp included in it.
And you might think, wow, that's really cool, it's inclusive.
You know, it's stairs, it's a ramp, it's both.
But looking at it a little bit closely,
if you were a person walking up to the stairs,
you hit the ramp, and there's a little bit of a discontinuity
there.
And so the students I've seen that are looking
at their smartphones all the time, you know,
that could be an issue.
They could trip.
In addition, folks who use wheelchairs,
I think they might be able to fall off
some of these stairs on the side here.
And in addition, it looks like this slope
is a little too steep.
So this is an example a lot of people
use for universal design, but it's really
not universal design.
So I want to talk about the market
for assistive technology.
There's lots of people in the US and globally
who have some kind of disability.
And you might think, well, you know, wheelchair users,
that's several million people with a disability,
and you might think of that as a homogeneous group.
But it isn't.
You know, every person has different wheelchair needs
and preferences.
You know, you've got manual wheelchairs, power wheelchairs,
and you have to fit the wheelchair and the cushion
to the individual.
It's a whole process.
And so it's not really a homogeneous group.
And in addition, every person has a unique personality,
challenges, circumstances, goals,
and aesthetic preferences.
So what this does is it fragments the market
almost down to the individual.
So if you're trying to build an assistive technology device,
I mean, it's hard to build it in a way that accommodates
lots of people with one disability
because they're all different.
You know, I want a green one.
You know, I need something special.
I prioritize maybe cost over performance.
And this goes on and on.
So the lack of this well-designed mass market,
well-defined mass market means that the companies serving
people with disabilities are pretty small
and the products are pretty expensive because there's
a lack of economies of scale.
You can't build 50,000 of any piece of assistive technology
because there are not many people that would buy it.
A little bit about empathy and compassion.
So they talk a lot about empathy as a part of the design
process, but in my mind, it's basically
sharing emotions and feelings.
And there's really no action there.
And in addition, I found out if you
do too much empathy without taking action,
you can develop depression.
So what you really want to do is look
at compassion, which is sympathy,
but it has an active element in there
by having a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
So these are words from the dictionary.
These aren't my words.
I wouldn't use suffering.
OK?
So empathy is used in a lot of design processes,
including design thinking.
I really don't think it's the right word,
and I'm going to be talking about a better
way of thinking about designing and building stuff.
So the engineering design process,
this comes from ABET, the organization
that accredits university engineering programs.
So here's their definition.
And they actually put in an accessibility provision
in here, though I don't see it now.
Oh yeah, right here, accessibility.
So those are some of the considerations when you're
doing an engineering design.
But in my mind, the most important part
of any design process is to understand the problem.
For my engineering mind, this is like a key, obvious issue.
And that involves clarifying goals and objectives
and talking to who your customer or customers are
and looking at the existing products that are out there,
gathering as much information as you can about the problem,
including on the internet, looking at journals, product
catalogs, talking to stakeholders, experts, health
care professionals, finding out as much as you can
through observation and interview of people.
You can review a person's disability condition,
and maybe you can even simulate that
by wearing goggles that provide a vision impairment.
I'm not sure that's so good, but basically you
want to talk to a lot of people and get a lot of perspectives,
including those of family members, health care
professionals, colleagues, researchers and stuff.
And that's why you may want to go to a conference
where you can learn about all these things
and talk to people who are experts in the field,
like Ray Grott and also participate
in a listserv where, if you have a question about something
[AUDIO OUT] from a colleague.
So a couple things that I've identified in these quotes
are really important.
A user may have a good handle on what the problem
that he or she experiences, but they may not
have a good idea of the benefits and limitations of technology.
So they can tell you about the problem,
but they might not be able to tell you how to solve it.
So that's where, if you're an engineer or a product designer,
your skills come into play.
And again, since each person has their own circumstances,
aesthetics, and are individuals, the solution
that you have for one person may not
be applicable to the entire population.
And this really comes apparent when
you try to build a product that will serve lots of people.
It's really hard to come up with one design that can
apply to the whole population.
Again, look in published literature,
look in other student projects, look in product catalogs
because you want to know what's already out there.
What products currently address the problem?
If you try to solve a problem without doing that,
you may be reinventing what already exists.
What products are commonly used?
What is their standard of care?
And so this is a real important quote that I've come up with.
Sometimes the only problem is the lack
of awareness of a suitable existing solution.
Many, many times, I hear people wanting a product
or suggesting a project that they think
is unique and has no solution, but it does.
And I've actually modified this statement to most of the time.
So I would say 9 times out of 10,
there is something that already exists.
So I've got an email saying, Dave, why don't you
have students work on this project,
and I do a Google search, and there's dozens of products
that serve that person.
If you're an engineer, you may want
to find out why the current products don't work.
They may be expensive.
They may weigh a lot.
They may be bulky.
They may not be reliable.
They may be ineffective.
People may not use them for one reason or another.
Maybe it's been misprescribed.
Maybe it doesn't look good.
Maybe it has poor functionality, doesn't fit right,
or it falls apart.
Or maybe it's an old piece of technology that could be--
there may be better stuff out there.
So a lot of people talk about need when they
talk about designing stuff.
But in my mind, a need is a subjective judgment,
and what you really need to do to judge the need
is have a full understanding of the problem.
And then you can move on to brainstorming and the design
process.
Some general prototyping rules are
start early, build things out of low-cost materials
and in low resolution and really quickly so you
can get a physical, tactile handle on what's going on.
You want to test it with users.
It's OK to work with one user if you're
a student working on a project in a class like mine.
You want to measure something if you're an engineer,
get feedback, get suggestions.
You want to analyze and reconsider what you've done,
and then redesign and iterate through fabrication again.
And ideally, the prototype that you're making
should inform you of your next design iteration.
OK?
And you're going to do a bunch of these
until the time or money run out.
So some examples of assistive technology devices, here's
one that a student of mine did about five years ago.
She used a brain-computer interface
to monitor, detect eye blinks, and to control computer games
and other things.
I'm going to have to take a break for a moment,
and then I'll be right back.
So hold on.
BRIANNA: OK, we'll continue going in a minute.
Does anybody have any comments or questions
they want to share while we're waiting for Dave to come back?
I haven't seen this headset this person's wearing before.
It's interesting.
I'm curious more about it.
Somebody asked in the chat, will the slides be shared later.
Let me ask Dave if he is willing to share them,
and I will get them.
When we do get to the Q&A period,
you'll be able to ask questions in the chat,
or you can unmute yourself and ask questions, as well.
So if you have any questions for Dave, keep them in mind.
And I can tell you a little bit more
about some of the work we've done
through this project and some of the other webinars we've
had coming up.
We've had some folks talk about their experiences
teaching about accessibility and figuring out
other ways to teach it.
We had a panel of individuals-- some were students,
some were professionals with disabilities-- talk
about their own experiences.
And we had a panel of UW faculty [INAUDIBLE]..
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, I'm back.
BRIANNA: [INAUDIBLE]
DAVID L. JAFFE: I'm sorry.
You know, sometimes nature calls,
and maybe I shouldn't have had that second cup of tea
this morning.
BRIANNA: You're fine.
DAVID L. JAFFE: So I apologize.
BRIANNA: Keep going.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, thanks.
There's a lot of brain-computer interfaces,
including this robotic hand.
So here, you see this woman with a plug in her head.
And just by her thought she's thinking about,
she thinks and she's able to move this robotic [AUDIO OUT]..
BRIANNA: It looks like our connection cut out.
Hopefully Dave will be back in a second.
Then, other, anyone else hear him?
SPEAKER 3: I can't hear him.
BRIANNA: No, OK.
SPEAKER 2: I can't hear him, either.
It's frozen.
BRIANNA: OK.
It looks like he got disconnected.
Hopefully he'll connect again.
Sorry for the technical difficulties, everybody.
We'll continue in just a second.
There we go.
Looks like the connection cut out there.
DAVID L. JAFFE: I should be back.
Am I back?
BRIANNA: Yeah, I hear now.
Yes.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK.
Where did all my stuff go?
BRIANNA: You should be able to share the screen again.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yeah, but my screen is--
I don't have my icons on the screen.
BRIANNA: Hm.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Oh, I see in my--
OK, I got it.
BRIANNA: OK.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Can you see that?
BRIANNA: No.
DAVID L. JAFFE: No?
OK, hold on.
I'm in control here.
Let's go down, hit that Share.
Did that share?
BRIANNA: There you go.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Thank you.
Sorry.
BRIANNA: Some days are like that,
but everybody's hanging with us, so we'll keep going.
I was chatting also on other webinars earlier, so.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, I should be back.
BRIANNA: Yes.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Fast forward through all this stuff.
Oh, god.
I'm sorry.
It worked so well yesterday.
BRIANNA: Some days are like that.
Have to roll with the punches.
DAVID L. JAFFE: You know, you do everything
you can to make it work, and then you're
at the mercy of technology.
BRIANNA: Yeah.
Oh, totally.
We depend on it for so many things, too.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Right.
Yeah.
So that's why, you know--
yeah.
BRIANNA: So we were looking at-- it
looked like it was CBS News coverage of a woman using
a robotic arm.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Right, yeah.
BRIANNA: With hear head plugged in.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yes.
BRIANNA: Which I have questions about.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, and that was actually a few years ago.
I'm really sorry this is taking so long.
BRIANNA: You're totally fine.
Did she have some kind of implant?
Is that how they were able to--
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yeah, there's an array
of electrodes in her brain that picks up
signals that are analyzed by a computer that
are recognized as movement, some of them as movement commands.
And that's the way most of these things type work.
So it's measuring EEG signals.
[INAUDIBLE]
OK.
Ugh.
I'm sorry.
BRIANNA: You're totally fine.
We're rolling with the punches.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yeah, just taking a while
to advance each slide because of--
guess my laptop is working hard.
BRIANNA: Yeah, you know--
DAVID L. JAFFE: There we go.
No, no, we're almost there.
BRIANNA: --that I've had issues with Zoom on certain computers.
So it's not perfect, but we use it
because it's a fairly accessible interface.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Right.
So there's been a bunch of people looking
at building hands for kids who are missing hands
using a 3D printer.
And it's been going on for a long time,
and so I would think they'd be close in building
a hand for every kid who is missing a hand.
And they do this in--
one of the companies is Not Impossible Labs,
so they're doing this around the world.
In this case, Sudan.
This is a non-3D-printed hand that my colleague has worked
on for a number of years, and they've almost
got 50,000 of these deployed in other countries.
Very simple hand, $50.
Here's a pink hand, 3D-printed.
Certainly if you're somebody that
uses this, that could be really cool, but the question is,
in my mind, are these things really functional?
Do kids use them every day?
Do people use them every day?
Or are they more of a toy than something functional?
And of course, the most awesome piece of orthotics--
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- One.
[END PLAYBACK]
DAVID L. JAFFE: --is the Infinity Gauntlet, OK?
This is an orthotic glove that Thanos wears
to give him godlike abilities.
So you know, that's the most powerful orthotic
you can think of.
And I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about Iron
Man and his exoskeleton.
Exoskeletons are becoming very popular,
and there's companies, including the VA, that
are looking at providing these to people who use them.
And of course, Dr. Who, the Daleks
are actually inside this exoskeleton,
this mobile exoskeleton.
So another example of assistive technology.
Keeping on the Transformer theme, film theme,
this is a Panasonic device that transforms from a bed
to a wheelchair.
So you're in the bed, and part of the bed
can be transformed into a wheelchair.
And this eliminates the need for lifting a person off the bed
and putting them in a wheelchair.
So this is a number of years old,
and I don't know if this has any commercial viability or not,
but it's a nice idea.
Microsoft developed this adaptive controller,
and they've had commercials on TV and stuff like that.
And so you might think, oh, wow, they [AUDIO OUT]..
BRIANNA: We are at the burden of technology today.
I am sorry for the pause.
Hopefully Dave comes back in a second.
SPEAKER 3: I guess I'll ask a few questions,
if you don't mind.
BRIANNA: Yeah.
SPEAKER 3: So how many webinars are in your series?
BRIANNA: We've done about eight of them,
or we'll have about eight through the year.
And so there's--
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK.
Am I back?
BRIANNA: Yeah.
We'll have another one coming up later this month
on legal things to know about accessibility.
So what, as an engineer, might you
want to know about the laws regarding accessibility.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK.
BRIANNA: Which should be interesting
given all of the Domino's lawsuit coverage.
Should be that...
SPEAKER 3: To say the least, yes.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Am I back?
BRIANNA: You are back.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, I don't know what's going on here.
Maybe the internet at my end.
What I want to say about this is that Google Glass
is an example of a commercial device, or formerly
commercial device that can be repurposed to help people
with disabilities.
And these two individuals use Google Glass
as a way to enjoy photography.
So that's really great.
OK, next slide.
Oh, why is this happening?
I don't know.
I don't know why I'm frozen, but--
BRIANNA: Well, would it be--
do you want to talk about some of your thoughts
without the slides?
Is that possible?
Or we could have some discussion?
DAVID L. JAFFE: Let's see.
Let me see if I can get through these real quick.
Yeah, maybe we can have a little bit of discussion.
Maybe there's questions out there
that I can answer while I'm cycling through this again.
BRIANNA: Does anybody have a question?
I can ask one, as well.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah, I do have a question.
So Dave was talking earlier about sort
of testing your prototypes with users.
But given that the landscape of disability
can be very diverse--
so for example, let's say cognitive disability,
there's various cognitive--
I don't want to use the word profiles,
but cognitive strengths and weaknesses
associated with each individual even
within a certain diagnostic label.
When you want to deploy technology
for these individuals, you know, in industry they say--
where is it?
You test five to six participants
and you're able to capture about 80% of the usability errors,
right?
And that really does not hold true for individuals
with disabilities, given how diverse and varied it is.
And I'm a little curious what your
take on addressing that difference is.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yeah.
It's really tough because, like I said,
every individual with a disability is different.
So how do you build something that
is useful for lots of people in any category?
And it's just a huge challenge.
And maybe that's why a lot of products fail,
because they just don't have the market.
So this is-- yeah, it's a huge issue.
So for my class, I just have students
work with one individual so they're not
confused by a market requirement for a certain product.
So.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah, correct, but especially with the aging
demographic and sort of all of the dementia
and how it's impacting each individual user differently,
whether it's in their motor skills or memory functions,
you know, putting out products that
can address these, I guess, flexibly
is a very realistic thing that needs to be dealt with, right?
DAVID L. JAFFE: Right, it's a huge challenge.
And the added piece of the design process
for making products is understanding the market.
So a lot of times, people build something
and they don't really understand the details of the market.
So I'm just going to go through the rest of these pretty quick,
unless there's another question out there.
BRIANNA: Somebody was asking about Google Glass,
and whether it's back in production or?
DAVID L. JAFFE: I've heard something
that it may be back in production,
but I haven't seen or heard anything recently.
So that's still up for grabs.
And there's actually people working
on a lot of different applications
for Google Glass, which, you know,
there's some folks here using Google Glass as a way--
and the computer to recognize facial expressions
for people with autism.
That's still going on, but how are you
going to have a viable system if there's no Google Glass around?
There's lots of different products out there.
This is one for table settings for those
with cognitive impairments.
This was done by a local woman as a partner for a college
project, and also the winner of the Stanford Center
on Longevity's first design challenge.
And I bring this up because this is a rare example of something
that has gone through the entire process.
So she has this--
these are being produced in China
and being sold on Amazon and at Walmart.
So this is an example that it can be done,
but it's really sort of rare.
And of course, assistive technology
could help pets, as well.
So it's a great PBS documentary.
Look up Bionic Pets, and you can review the whole thing.
I mean, they even have commercials on TV
now of dogs getting prosthetic legs and stuff.
Then you have things like this, where
it's a custom design for a particular individual
because he's interested in doing this and it's cool for him
to do that, but you wouldn't make like 50,000 of these
and try to sell them to people because, you know,
there's not that interest in having
something that looks like this.
Here's another example of a real product.
And this was done by a couple students at Stanford, Liftware.
This is a spoon that's stabilized by accelerometers
in there so that, if you have tremors,
the spoon stays stable.
And this is available online.
Google actually bought this, and you can buy these things
for about $250.
iBot wheelchair, here's an example of something
that didn't work.
The company, Johnson & Johnson, spent $500 million
on this design, and I found out they only sold 500 of them.
So each one of these cost $1 million.
So they're trying to revive it.
Toyota Research Institute has came up with this prototype,
and I've just heard that another company will
manufacture and market a new version of this, as well.
So here's a wheelchair that actually
has done really well because they've really
focused a lot on aesthetics.
And aesthetics is really important in design
because everybody wants to look cool, and being in a wheelchair
is the most uncool thing that you can do if you're not
in a cool-looking wheelchair.
So this device is relatively inexpensive, $2,500.
It had omniwheels on the front.
This is their new version.
And here's an example of omniwheeels over here.
And back when I was working at the VA,
we made a device consisting of three omniwheels
to build a whole wheelchair that was omnidirectional
and could go sideways.
Oh, this is a photo of a praying mantis
that I took outside my office a few weeks ago.
And it's a team mascot for the Royals,
but this is the Stanford team mascot the tree.
And you should fear the tree because it's powerful.
The mascot used to be an Indian, and the team
used to be called the Stanford Indian,
but now it's called the Cardinal,
but it's not the bird or the religious figure,
it's actually the color.
Stanford Cardinal is a color.
The last thing I want to do is, real quickly, talk
about my course and some of the projects
that the students worked on last year.
It's a 10-week, one-quarter course.
Teams of three students working on projects.
The class sessions include lectures, tours
at the VA, an accessible playground.
I put on an assistive technology fair, have movie night.
The students work with people with disability
in the local community, so they're in contact with them
all the time as they're developing their project.
The students do midterm and final presentation,
and the last class session is like a trade
show, project demonstrations.
Here's a couple of students at the Magical Bridge Playground.
And I've encouraged them to try to balance
on this rotating disk, which is a piece of play equipment
there.
This is a project for Abby.
You see she's in a wheelchair, and she
has one hand on the controls and another hand on her service
dog.
And she doesn't really have a place
to put stuff when she goes shopping,
so students came up with this insulated zippered bag
that she could use while grocery shopping.
They also built a different kind of belt
buckle for her service dog that doesn't require pinching,
because pinching can be difficult for people who
have hand and wrist problems.
This is a student at Stanford who cannot independently call
an elevator - designs for something that would work
for her to make her more independent.
Worked on a bunch of lap trays.
This design was one inspired by the desks in auditoriums
that fold up and fold over.
So the students made a lap tray that does just that.
So that was a really neat project.
Here's a water bottle holder for--
and iPhone holder-- for Danny, who's a wheelchair user.
Pretty simple design, but not all the students in my class
are engineers, so they actually had
to figure out how to laser cut all this stuff.
This is another project for Danny
that allows him to pick up this dropped iPhone.
And in this case, the student team
consisted of three Stanford offensive linemen football
players, each over 350 [INAUDIBLE]..
BRIANNA: We are not having a good day, are we?
Thanks, everybody, for hanging with us.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Oh, am I--
BRIANNA: We got paused as you were talking about the football
players.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK.
God, I was almost done.
Am I back?
BRIANNA: You're back.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, I'm almost done.
Thank goodness.
Oh, no, why did it go back?
BRIANNA: We're not having a good day with technology here.
DAVID L. JAFFE: No.
But, you know.
BRIANNA: Thanks for having a sense of humor about it.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yeah.
BRIANNA: It is what it is.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, well, you know,
there's a few other projects, but I don't think
I need to go through all those.
So we can just wrap up with questions
that people have, either about the course
or what I talked about.
And for those-- oh, I want to give my email address.
It's Dave Jaffe, D-A-V-E J-A-F-F-E, @Stanford.edu.
So you're welcome to email me.
And I have a newsletter for my course, and if you email me,
I'll put you on that list.
And the URL for my course is http://engr110.stanford.edu.
So.
BRIANNA: Does anybody have any questions for Dave?
This was a great presentation.
Again, my apologies for the interruptions.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yeah, it was probably Stanford's.
BRIANNA: A couple folks have asked if you're
willing to share the slides.
DAVID L. JAFFE: I'll send you a PDF.
BRIANNA: OK, great.
If you share with me, then I can share with everyone.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yeah.
And this is going to be made--
you're going to caption this?
You're going to post captions?
BRIANNA: Yeah, we're going to caption them and then post them
on our website, which takes us a little while,
but using an accessible video player, as well, when we do it.
You mentioned that students in your class aren't engineers.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Well, they sometimes
are and sometimes not, because the course is really flexible
as far as who can take it.
So I've had mechanical engineers and computer
science people, people from human biology, regular biology.
I've actually had a couple of business school students
take the class, and liberal arts people.
So they can work on projects, or if they're don't have time,
they can just sit in on the lectures
and get one unit of credit.
They can also work on a small project,
like writing about a specific topic
or doing something that doesn't involve users.
They may do something like come up
with a web app or some kind of a website
or explore some other things.
So the course is designed to be flexible
so that people can take it without having
a background in engineering.
Well, although a lot of students,
you know, will use the shop facilities here
and learn how to do 3D printing and laser cutting
and all this other stuff.
And that's just another skill that they acquire.
BRIANNA: That's awesome.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yeah.
BRIANNA: [INAUDIBLE] mentioned a conference
he's mentioned a conference, the ATAAC Conference held
in Croatia.
What other conf-- you mentioned going to conferences
is a good way to learn.
What other conferences would you recommend?
DAVID L. JAFFE: Well, I would recommend the professional
society called Resna, R-E-S-N-A, that I've been going
to for about 40 years.
So this is a professional society of not just engineers,
but therapists and anybody involved
in assistive technology.
The next-- it typically runs in late June or early July,
and this coming year it will be in Washington, DC.
There are exhibit halls, there's classes, including
the fundamentals class.
There's workshops and an exhibit area
and all sorts of other activities going on,
including student design competition, student
scientific paper competition.
And it's really the place for learning
about assistive technology.
And it's a place that belongs to professionals.
OK?
So it's been around a long time.
They've been very active in credentialing
in assistive technology.
So it's the one conference I go to every year,
and this year will be 40 years.
BRIANNA: Awesome.
DAVID L. JAFFE: Yeah.
BRIANNA: There was another question.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, go ahead.
BRIANNA: Kat Steele asked, what strategies
do you use to figure out what projects
are a good fit with a 10-week class?
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, right.
The biggest challenge for me is exploring challenges
in the local community.
So I have people, you know, get in touch with me
and suggest student projects.
And I have to validate them to make sure
they meet all the requirements and that there's nothing
already out there that solves the problem.
So what that means is these are all original, realistic
problems experienced by people with disabilities locally.
OK?
And so those are documented on the website and then
in a handout.
And on the second day of class, the people
who suggested the projects pitch them to the class.
And the students evaluate all those and form teams
and pick the project that they would like to work on.
So it works out well for everybody.
You know, I help the students [AUDIO OUT]
or give me an update so I know they're on the right track.
So that's the way it works.
So in a lot of other classes, there's
projects that may involve companies or imaginary people,
but in my mind, if you work with an imaginary problem,
you'll come up with an imaginary solution.
I don't concern myself at all with commercialization
because that's another whole issue,
so it's OK if the student just works on a project that
benefits one person.
The main focus and goal of the course
is use assistive technology as a framework to giving students
skills and working in a team, working in the community,
going through a design process, critical thinking, analysis
of a problem, and most critically,
improving communication skills of presentation and report
writing, because these are the skills
that the students are going to be
used once they graduate, no matter what area they go into.
And I really wish somebody had told me
when I was going to school how important communication
skills-- you know, writing and presenting-- would be,
because those are skills I use all the time.
BRIANNA: One last question.
Kat Steele asks, what strategies do
you use to set the expectations of the users who
work with the students?
DAVID L. JAFFE: Oh, OK.
Right, that's a very good question.
So you know, first of all, it's students.
Second of all, it's a 10-week course,
so there's limited time.
Students have a budget of a couple hundred dollars,
so that's a limit, as well.
I tell you the users right off the bat
that the students are supposed to come up
with a functional prototype, but you know,
it may not be ready for prime time,
it may not even be safe to use.
So in those cases, I don't allow the user
to get the piece of equipment.
And I certainly don't allow any projects
that would put a person at risk of harm.
OK?
BRIANNA: Well, thank you very much,
Dave, for this presentation, and thanks, everybody,
for joining us.
This was great, and I'll follow up over email with everybody.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK.
Well, thanks again.
I appreciate everybody participating and listening,
and I hope you got something out of it.
And if you have any questions or you
want to send me a review, your thoughts, please do so.
I welcome whenever you have to say.
OK.
My power just is running out, too.
BRIANNA: Bye-bye.
DAVID L. JAFFE: OK, bye.