Tech Tuesday: Assistive Technology for Gaming

all right um hd did you want to give it another minute or do you think we should get started also you are muted all right yeah so we have um everyone in from the waiting room and captioners and asl is ready to go so you're off that all right well uh thank you everyone for joining this is assistive technology for gaming um the next slide so um my name is abby squires i um work here at michigan disability rights coalition i am our at specialist for gaming also for crafting um my pronouns are she her i'm a proud neurodivergent woman um and i'm gonna i'll go ahead and do my visual description as well for accessibility um i am a white woman of size i'm wearing a mars attack shirt and a faded black hoodie my hair is up in a messy bun i have glasses and my background is of a somewhat cluttered office um and our chat moderator today is aj thomas and did you want to do a little intro of yourself in a visual description sure my name is aj thomas i am the youth assistant technology specialist um for michigan disability rights coalition um and today i am chat moderating and so feel free to um if you have any questions to put those in the chat and i will make sure that abby um sees and aware that you have questions and i will also um be adding some of our links and um different information based off of what abby is talking about in the chat um my visual description is that i am a woman of color with brown skin i have brown braids and i wear glasses and i also identify as a person with a disability all right and here at michigan just human rights coalition on our assistive technology program um while the this specific part of the at program is new gaming um gaming is something that i've always been super passionate about and before i get too into talking about gaming i we do need to go over a little bit about our mission vision and what the at program is about so asia's gonna give you a little bit of that and then we can get into gaming okay thanks abby so our mission at michigan disability rights coalition is that we cultivate disability pride and strengthen the disability movement by recognizing disability as a natural and beautiful part of human diversity while collaborating to dismantle all forms of oppression our vision is that we envision a world where people with disabilities have space for self-discovery to cultivate community and to develop pride our program we provide the michigan assistive technology program we provide assistive technology at related supports around the state we our program that are by people with disabilities for people with disabilities and we also go out and we cover all parts of the state including the u.p and you can request a demonstration or loan out some of our assistive technology devices you can do that by calling our number sending an email or filling out a request for a demonstration via a form on google forms and i will put that information in the chat and uh just to add a little bit on um matp we strive to make all that we do as accessible and inclusive as possible so if for any reason you have trouble with any of the information we present or the way we present the information we welcome that feedback to improve also um just kind of note that with our current inventory of devices we may not include all aspects of the disability experience for example we may have some things for individuals with a physical disability and other things might be specific for individuals fit with low vision but we do our best to include everyone but recognize we may not have devices that are specifically for one population and for a little bit of housekeeping and questions um feel free to unmute and interject with a question you might have or comment um feel free to you can raise your hand you can type in the chat if you do asian a will read that out loud um and then we also will be asking a few questions throughout the session so we encourage that interaction so please yeah unmuter type in the chat and we have closed captioning available and interpreter as well so if you need help accessing that just let us know all right so what is assistive technology he is any item or piece of equipment software app that is used to help people with disabilities including older adults do what they want to do technology makes things easier for everyone and for people with disabilities at opens up possibilities so first question is when you think of accessible gaming what comes to mind and so if if people are typing or like i said on you um asian a i have a question for you yes um i know you're not typically a gamer but is there any games or certain consoles that you play or board games yes so um i love to play mario kart um with my kids and with my family and we play that on the nintendo switch right now um it's very nostalgic too because like my era was the nintendo 64. um so now and then my son he plays pokemon and i used to play pokemon when i was a kid so like the new graphics and all that stuff i'm like wow like you're really in a whole world and i didn't get like you know our screens were kind of like black and white and you know so now he has like all these cool graphics and um the characters are like really clear and cool um but yeah mario kart is like our thing like playing in all the um different like worlds and different um levels and stuff like you love to play mario kart yeah when you talk about pokemon i just think of the nintendo 64 pokemon snapshot yes and i mean if no one has any answers for the accessible game and we'll just move on and if you do want to type we can still go back and write that if you want to go to the next slide so some things we're going to cover today is how the lack of accessibility and gaming affects the public health crisis that is social isolation we're going to go over some accessibility features on consoles different types of adaptive controllers and assistive technology for tabletop gaming and we'll go over a little bit of other things as well it's more of a brief overview today because um there's just so much like just on one of these topics alone i feel like i could do a two-hour presentation so we're just kind of a brief overview today um and then i think someone just typed in the chat asian if you want to yep so jordan said um i can't remember all the options but i remember being impressed by the number of accessibility options i saw offered for far cry 6 on ps4 yes um i feel like there's a lot of really cool accessibility features especially in the last of us too and assassin's creed valhalla um uh marvel's spider-man the newer one um was super accessible it was really it was great i think it won a lot of awards too um and actually that kind of goes into the next question i already asked asian a this but i wanted to ask everyone here if you want to go to the next slide um what console do you play on or do you play on pc do you have a favorite game whether it be a video game board game or card game rpg um yeah you can like i said type in the chat or um unmute someone's at pc playstation tyler nice i am a playstation person as well i use my ps4 every day i don't have a ps5 yet um and i wish i had a pc but i do not have a decent enough pc to run any games pc and ttrpg's nice i mean d and d on pc otherwise ps4 jordans um jalisa loves to play candyland with their daughter yes put some shoots and ladders in there um favorite game is last of us too it is so good i agree with you tyler uh and the first last of us i thought was amazing but the last of us too the accessibility features chef kiss thank you everyone um and then we can go into the next one and if still if someone wants to chime in with their favorite game go go for it um so with social social isolation um it affects or gaming affects social isolation a lot so um just some like quotes and stats that i found from ablegamers 35 to 45 percent of people with disabilities were profoundly socialized socially isolated even before coven and it was just way worse once coveted and also research on digital games have shown that they contribute to higher levels of well-being less depression and less negative effects amongst older adults and so while going to an arcade or a gaming meetup is really good for combating social isolation it's not always an option so like there are multiple barriers such as like transportation or lack of supports or being a higher risk of coven 19 and some spaces might even have physical barriers or not accessible um so that's where where online gaming comes in um they help allow individuals to connect with family and people who have similar interests like my brother is in the marines and he's over in california right now and that's a way that we keep in contact and talk the most is either play games together or he has a pc and he streams a lot on twitch so i'll watch him on twitch and talk via twitch and moderate his chat sometimes and that's been super great and we love that um and it helps to create an amazing support network and foster lifelong friendships which has a really amazing impact on one's well-being um i think back in like 2000 11 i met um some people when i was playing eso and i'm still friends with them today they were a huge support system i think they were helping me out the most when my mom passed away um and i would have never met them otherwise there's um my friends are in australia and dubai and louisiana um and i would have never met them if it wasn't for online gaming and then also like even with some of the advances in accessibility in the gaming community a lot of gamers with disabilities still feel excluded because some consoles and games and equipment still lack a lot of accessibility features which is why accessibility in my opinion needs to be needs to stop being an afterthought for developers and needs to start being part of the process from like the very beginning um and i do have a quote that i didn't put on there and i'll get to the next site i'm sorry um someone um a man who served in the navy and was end up uh being injured and a quadriplegic he said that he loves online gaming because it provides him with the distraction from his physical pain and engages him socially his quote says i primarily use it as a distraction from chronic pain because i have neuropathic pain in lower part of my body and it feels like my limbs are on fire the more that i'm totally distracted or immersed in a game the more that pain tends to go away so just another way of how it's positively impacts people and so some types of accessibility features on consoles um i was originally going to do individual consoles but um there is just so many so much overlap so a lot of consoles have like narration um magnifiers and zoom features high contrast or color blind options closed captionings some voice to text um button remapping and if um some of you might not be familiar with uh remapping uh that allows players to choose um what assistive aid they make they will make like the character jump or run or pick up items without having to um rely on the default settings so if the like right trigger button is not accessible to you you can remap it so it ends up being triangle which is accessible um which is super helpful and not all games have that but some do which is which is nice and something to mention about um xbox they have a lot more features than others i feel like they have um something called copilot which is really cool because it's you can connect one controller to another and that helps because you don't need to um i'm sorry it makes it easier so if using both hands is an issue or you only have use of your your right arm and you can only use half the controller someone else like a friend or family member can like control the moving around and looking or the jumping and so you can play together as one person but it's also helpful for even like just playing as one person so you could be using the right side of the controller and then the connected copilot one you could have on the ground and use your foot to help move around so i just thought that was really an awesome feature and i wanted to include that in here and xbox also has made it really easy to find games in their um their store so they have accessibility tags and so people can go through and check to make sure the game they want to get has the accessibility features they need um so they can make a decision if they want to purchase that game or not and i haven't checked in a minute but playstation um they don't really they had an accessibility tab i'm not sure if they still do but it had like a list of games but it didn't list any of the actual accessibility features in the game so i didn't find that super helpful but i mean i guess they're trying um but i think playstation can come a little farther and i feel like switch is starting to get a little bit better um but again i feel like it's no match for xbox right now and then we can go on to the controllers so there are a lot of different controllers more than what i have um pictured here but there are a lot of 3d printed adaptions um and ways that you can access that you can purchase some online or you can even go to like a local library or college campus and soon you can come here we're getting a 3d printer um and some locations might just make you pay for the filament or labor to make it but that's a really um it's just a fun way i feel like to obtain adaptations for your controllers and then so in the middle there that's a switch controller the joy-con um and you can place that inside this controller so it makes it a steering wheel so it's um easier to play i feel like um mario kart and things like that and they have a lot of other um controllers that you can insert the joy-cons to to make it easier and they have something called a pro controller that um it kind of looks like an xbox controller um and that makes it um if you're used to like xbox playstation controllers i find those a lot easier because the joy cons are just so small and there's a lot of sites that i'm going to include on the resource guide that you can check out and purchase and accessible adaptive controllers also a bunch of 3d printing blueprints um so if you have a 3d printer you can print them yourself all right and maybe have you heard of the controllerproject.com yeah tyler um put that in the chat oh okay great place to find controller modifications yeah that's um that's one that i put on my list but i actually didn't go through and look at it just yet because i just found that i think last week um but there's a lot of other ones like brought in horizons.com evil controllers um scuff gaming thingiverse um and i think there's some more too that i'm gonna have included um and oh i wasn't doing descriptions of the images um so the top one is of the xbox accessible controller which is like a white tri art triangle sorry a white rectangle with two large black circles and a black directional pad um it looks like a cross kind of and then on the bottom left there is a white playstation 5 controller with a 3d adaption on it um 3d printed adaption and then in the middle there is two steering wheels with a red and a blue joy-con in each one and then there is a 3d printed adaption in the bottom right corner with a black playstation 4 controller and that one's pretty cool it attaches to both of the joy-con thumbsticks and it makes it like a little mini steering wheel um and then you can go on to the next slide i'm going to talk a little bit more about the xbox controller so it was designed primarily to meet the needs of gamers with limited mobility and with the ridiculous amount of inputs there's 19 which i thought was just amazing you can use a variety of different buttons switches foot pedals joysticks and more in [Music] they have the ability of having three different user profiles and so that can be for different people but i think it's mostly used for different setups for different games so like for a first person shooter you wouldn't use the same controls as you would like a racing game um and that just makes it easier when you want to switch games so you can just change the profile um you want wait i lied don't go on to the next slide um so there's also adapters that you can use that i don't go into great detail about but i do have um resources on there but they are usb devices that allow you to use um your favorite adaptive controller with other gaming systems like the ps4 xbox one ps3 the 360 even your playstation tv pc in the wii um because i think xbox really says that it's only for xbox and sometimes pc but it can you can use adapters to make it work for anything you need and then you can go ahead to the next slide so some switches pedals and joysticks this is not all that's out there there's a lot more but this is just a few things so there is the 3d rudder on the bottom left the images of feet on top of a black disc with red pads on it and so that allows 360 movement and it's with use of your feet so if you don't have if you have limited mobility or no mobility with your hands or arms there's you can move forward backwards left right up down rotate and then we have next to that is the string switch and nope that is not the string switch that is actually the handlebase thumbstick in the middle there so it's a image of the xbox accessible controller in the background with the xbox controller and then underneath there is a square with a joist or a joystick sticking out and what that does is it allows you to operate both of the thumb sticks by using only your right hand or just your left hand the handle base includes um an adhesive to attach it so you can stick that on and what i've seen some users do is they use that um joystick on their leg on the bottom there and then they use the other one with their hand next to that is actually the string switch and that is a small black box with a string attached to it and that one it is you can pull the string and it provides like an audible click and smooth tactile feedback and so that's just another way of or another option than using a button or um or other types of switches and then above that is the arcade fighting stick which is really cool it's just like a plug-and-play and you can use it on virtually like everything um and it's super easy to set up um and evil controllers actually they partnered with ablegamers um to create the this uh the handlebase thumbstick in other adaptations to controllers and they're just a really awesome site they have super customizable controllers so i would check them out and you can go to the next slide all right so this is just more about switches um the top left image is of a white man in a power chair and there's a red and a green switch on either side of his headrest and so he uses that for um for as alternative buttons and some people use their elbows some people use their chin whatever works for you um anything is really possible if like you can use your feet there's bite switches um there are the micro light switch is it's very sensitive so it doesn't um require a lot of pressure there is something called a grasp switch which just looks kind of like a kind of like a long microphone or it's just like a black tube shape and what you can do with that is you can either squeeze it or you can pinch it and that works as a um a switch as well and you can go on to the next slide all right so grips and thumbsticks and miscellaneous um so for this one the thumb sticks uh on the bottom right image they're purple and they have a tactile design on them and there's also the grip on each of the handles of the controller so what the thumb sticks do is that they provide sensory input and they also have concave or convex design and sometimes you can get them a hybrid so one joystick can be uh concave the other one can be convex and there is different heights that you can have as well so there's the low medium high and this allows increased control and the grips have a certain material that helps with grip but also it helps with airflow to keep your hands cool and not all sweaty and it's a foam kind of material it's like a rubbery foam and it feels like memory foam kind of and it's just easier on your hands as well and the precision rings which i did not know about until recently are pretty cool so they help by letting you use less force so that means less work for the muscles of your wrist hand and thumb increasing comfort and the harder you push on the thumb sticks the more the material is going to cushion to um cushion your stick making so you have more accurate shots even at high or max in game sensitivity they're also like super stretchy and um all of their products are antimicrobial and you can reuse them um also with the the grips so they are attached by adhesive but it allows you to remove them and reposition them without leaving like a gross sticky residue also with the precision rings up in the top left corner those also make it dampens the sound so it makes it really quiet so if um for sensory reasons like if sound is an issue it helps with that clicking sound when you're using the thumb sticks and also the control freaks is who creates these they have all of these available for ps4 ps5 the switch pro controller and the xbox s x and one all right and then we're gonna move on to some dungeons and dragons so with dungeon the dragons there are some really cool accessibility character sheets so they have disability friendly large font um and i have um some downloads because um i need to find the site because i'll put that on the resource guide but you can download them for free and if you're interested in them just shoot me an email and i can send those to you they also have high contrast and tactile dice which i'm going to go over the dice in more detail in the next slide also d sites so when i play d d i use um d d and beyond which i love they also have a similar site uh roll20 um and so what d and d and beyond kind of provides its gives you access to basic rules of the game um the character builder and then there's the digital character sheet um and it has integrated dice rolling which is super nice and it just looks cool you collect different colors and designs of dice um so if you needed to roll like 5d 20 you can just like click the d20 go up to 5 roll it and it shows it rolling on the screen and something super nice is it adds like your modifiers to it automatically so you don't have to calculate that and to prevent cheating it shows up in the chat um what you've rolled so everyone can see it um and it also they pro like roll 20 also has encounter builders and interactive monster stats searchable st spells [Music] it also helps with like tracking your inventory and it even shows like if you've been poisoned in how long the effects last and it'll oh fantasy grounds i didn't know about that one eileen i'm gonna write that down but um it helps with yeah like tracking your items and also you can click on like a short rest or long rest and it does that for you and redoes your stats and then and so like the aim of that is just to get more from the game and it just has so many different tools and resources all right dice so there are digital dice apps that you can download from the google play store or the apple store and sorry asian i know you're supposed to read the chat but i have it up so i saw that jordan said i haven't done it personally but the discord app has bots you can use to roll that what i didn't know discord had that um oh and speaking of discord work uh our social media a guy nick and i are trying to work on creating a discord group for inclusive gaming so look out for that um and some other dice there's tactile dice and tactile dice is different than braille dice by it just has the raised like one two three and also they have tactile dice with like the actual numbers written out but you can feel what it is but then the barrel dice is actually in braille and a lot of those are 3d printed um and there's also large print and high contrast dice which is super helpful with low vision and something i never actually had myself but i think is super cool are the dice towers so if like shaking and rolling the dice um isn't that accessible or they end up going everywhere and falling on the ground you can just set them in the top of the dice tower and then it rolls down and rolls for you and i feel like uh with my neurodivergent i feel like it also helps because sometimes when i roll i'm like and i get like a bad roll i'll be like oh i like i shook them wrong or i rolled them wrong and so really when you do this it's like it's up to the dice tower it's not something that you did wrong and i know that might sound silly but it helps me um and also something that's super cool that i just recently found out you can ask google or siri to roll dice for you um i'll do that on my phone right now so you can say hey google roll 5 d20 i don't know if you can see it kind of what 18 8 13 3 and 14 that makes 56 um and i thought that was super cool and it can also like flip a coin and that kind of stuff as well and i haven't tried it with an iphone but i was told that it works with that as well um all right and then we can go on to the next so card games um there are things like an automatic shuffler that makes it easier um to shuffle cards and we have the top right one which is a blue um device that you can set your cards in and it's just one row but it's still super helpful if holding the cards is difficult and then in the middle on the bottom it's another design and it has like three tiers so you can put a lot more cards on there and it makes it easier to see each row um also large print large print playing cards and then there's also a lot of large print for like low vision like bingo there's large print boggle in a lot of other games um and the large print just helps buy less eye strain and just makes it more visible and something that there's no pictures of on here but there's a lot of um braille games they have braille kits for games that you can purchase like for settlers of catan all the rules everything even like the little hexagon things are all in braille which is really cool and they have it for like uno and monopoly chess checkers bingo dominoes um virtually like almost all the games you can think of um [Music] all right and then so because it was a pretty brief overview um if you did want more in-depth information on i listed a lot of things on there um feel free to um reach out also in the survey i believe there's a text box where you can put um what you might want to see more on um i'm already planning on doing a dnd alone like just by itself because i have so much more i can talk about with that um so yeah with that one feel free oh thank you aj put my email in the chat um all right and then you can go to the next slide um so um i went through it pretty fast i talked super fast and i apologize to the interpreter and captioner but um that actually leaves me time to possibly play a youtube video um that shows the accessible controller and it has zach anner in it which i think he's hilarious and i like him a lot um so actually i will bring that up and we can watch that and then i can start to end it oh i see jonah hi there sorry for the awkward timing of this question i'm driving hoping you can get to it eventually i run a video game collection at an academic library and i'm considering a student project that would test games for accessibility features and compile this per games does it allow active oh activate subtitles um before the intro can the subtitles be adjusted detailed descriptions of how the multiplayer works i love that um the question is which websites or other repositories such as can i play that i'm so glad you asked that actually because i do have um a list of similar um on similar sites on my resource guide but i don't have that up right now but there are other sites like um dagger system there's one for like family games that you can look up games by accessibility features um i think there's a couple other ones and some of them i feel like are really convoluted and kind of hard to navigate um and let's see but yeah like a lot of games like you said with like the activate subtitles and all that there are some that um you can change like the subtitles so you can change the font you can change the size and if it's bold or not or if it's high contrast um and you can skip them all together there's also um in i think it's in marvel spiderman there's a really cool accessibility feature where some of the things you have to alter alternate buttons really fast or just like button smash in order to do something which and depending on how fast it is it's like the better in the game and that can be really difficult for some people so it gives you the option to turn that off nice tyler uh yeah oh gaming accessibility next nexus uh dagger system accessible games database can i play that game access info nice thank you and i know you said you were driving jonah so i'll if any of those aren't on my list i will make sure they're on the resource list and i will credit you tyler um no no need you probably got them on there yeah i don't know if i have the uh accessibility nexus one so i think that one might be new for me yeah thank you finding ratings on games and stuff like that has definitely been something that is a roadblock for a lot of users and definitely something i've ran into as well so yeah and definitely it's hard to gauge too because i mean it depends on how many inputs you have available and stuff too right it's not really a one rating sometimes that's difficult but definitely nice to see what accessibility's options are in games before they're launched because you don't want to buy an 80 game and then realize that it doesn't work for you exactly and i feel like some of the reviews aren't done um by multiple different people with different disabilities so it really it's it's hard to trust certain reviews but um it's better than nothing and let's see sorry um oh there's also one that i found that has a list of a list of games that talk about if they're accessible for low vision or blind and also they have a lot of reviews for some of the braille games um and that one's also on the resource guide and okay i'm gonna look up that video all right so this is um zack anner and it's him testing out the accessibility controller and it's a five minute video so i feel like that's perfect um i'm gonna go ahead and share my screen and make sure i share sound all right okay and let me know if you can hear it all right and we are here at the microsoft lounge to check out their new adaptive controller this controller allows any variety of gamers with any ability to play the way that they want to play but these two big buttons they can be programmed as anything on the controller right now they're at a and b my first thought was man i would have loved having this as a kid yeah yeah yeah i won i won both games i'm amazing and my second thought was i want to beat josh flanagan playing video games guys and i met in college and we immediately became best friends he has carried me up mountains he is the thelma to my louise that analogy doesn't work at all i've got a pretty solid 34 years of gaming under my belt i'm really interested today to see how far zach's less than one day of gaming stacks up to that if i can just get to that level immediately then i'll be satisfied park a loser approaches joshua yeah you ready to be beaten ready you're looking pathetic today thank you you're gonna regret this if i can't win after training for 15 minutes then what am i doing you know who else had 15 minutes of training neil armstrong and he drove to the moon okay so you're beating me a little but i'm just getting warmed up this is more even than i thought it would be i was immediately taken aback by how good i was i was actually pretty impressed he was he was getting some punches in but uh you know he was still awful no stop it we see so many wait you didn't win did you yeah i did that went by so fast got got a few few jabs in but at the end of the day zach is he's new to this he's a he's a baby and uh you know what's the first thing you do to a baby you spank it i can't spin that that sucks i hope you get diarrhea and it never stops it's too late you can lead a gamer to an adaptive controller but you can't make him win good huh put that on the box most people would be glad to get 15 minutes of fame uh much less 15 minutes of practice and zach has squandered both i know what i have to do i gotta go to the kitchen and get a snack i was losing so i needed to take things to the next level with a little anti-adaptive technology otherwise known as sabotage okay well i think i'm ready to play again [Music] [Applause] i can't believe i'm still losing we had your standard sabotage package for josh hit him with the dodge hanging him upside down shot him with dogs what's inside the mind of someone like that [Music] i think i'm gonna stop it right there i'll provide the link for the rest of it in the resource guide as well and zac enter is a comedian with cerebral palsy and he does a lot of videos about accessibility um there's one that he's like on the search for the rainbow bagel in new york and he talks about how like inaccessible a lot of the and how many physical barriers to get to the bagel shop um and then aj if you want to share the presentation again then you can hit the next again because i think it this one pops up okay so thank you for attending our at for gaming um what's that you want a demo um so what we do is we provide individualized meetings with um rat specialists and you can review and test out different products compare and contrast them to see what works best for you um we have a phone number you can call you can email me directly there's a google form even you can fill out um and then if you want to hit enter one more time i forgot okay oh yeah what you're super excited to fill out our survey asian is going to put our survey link in the chat and any feedback would be appreciated and let me know what else you want to see um any future presentations i know i didn't go super in depth with a lot of things but i would love to so let me know what you might want to see next um and then if you want to go to the next slide i'm going to just talk about how we just created or like is there any inclusive gaming groups why yes yes there is i'm so glad you asked um we just created an inclusive gaming uh facebook group uh the link will be in the resource guide and um aj i don't think i sent you the link but if you want to put that in the chat um so what we do on there is we um we share different um accessibility features and games we just talk about our personal experiences um and it's not just about multiplayer like single-player games too like like the last of us and like limbo which is a platform game and you can connect with other gamers and talk about games that you love and share like your gaming setup too because it's awesome to see different setups especially with adaptive equipment so then you can also get ideas of what might work for you better than what you might already have set up um and we share streamer names so if you have like a twitch or you stream on youtube or facebook live we encourage the promotion of that and promotion of events that might be nearby that people can attend whether it be in person or virtual um so yeah please feel free to join um and if anyone has any questions or comments we have about eight minutes left so feel free to um ask questions um if not i hope everyone has a ridiculously good day and we can end a little early but we'll wait a couple minutes and see if anyone has questions and again feel free to unmute and actually tyler i did have a question for you with makers making change because i know um i believe there is makers making change in like every state as well um could you actually talk a little bit about um what it is that makers making change does yeah yeah sure of course um yeah so we're a non-profit uh based out of canada but like you mentioned all our designs for all our stuff are open source and online so they're available worldwide um so all the designs are focused around assistive technology um so you mentioned switches so we have 3d printed versions of switches that uh the user will only pay the material cost of what that is for the volunteer who's going to make it so traditionally switches can be in the you know 60 to 100 sometimes even 200 range um and then just the costs and materials for our switches are in that like five dollar ten dollar range for those um and yeah as you mentioned in the u.s we have chapter volunteer leaders all across the country um so if you i'll put a link in the chat right now to our website but if you go on the assistive technology devices tab and if you find something that might work for you or something you want to try out you can just hit request and someone in your area will volunteer and help build it um and then if you don't find something that is if you find something that you know you're looking for something isn't on the website you don't see it you can submit an idea as well and then some of our volunteers are designers and they'll take that and create it you know work with you to create it for you um another adaptive gaming side what i'm working on right now is um very similar to some of the stuff that you were talking about in a meeting like this where we have like kind of that introduction to video games and an introduction to adaptive technology there can be a lot of barriers there for people that uh just to get into adaptive gaming and the tech's quite expensive and that kind of thing so we're creating resources that are specifically focused uh just around the introduction to gaming and just around like how do you go from not having whatever you have at home home and then adapting that into something that would be functional is like the lowest cost um possible so i appreciate you giving this talk and lots of great information thank you and i'm glad you brought up some of that because yeah there's a lot of diy setups that you can do and um there's a book it's not just about gaming but it is a book by teresa wilco i believe her name is and it's a book about ways you can make a tea um with things just around your house and like makers making change in every single state there is an at program and that's another thing if you want to reach out and we can help you locate the at program in your state um and also like you said he can get really expensive so that's another reason why um like we like to be able to provide demonstrations and even short-term loans um so people can test out these items and before they purchase them because buying something that's super expensive and then not being able to use it it's real bummer and there are also resources for um for funding as well um there's a lot of sites like ablegamers and special effects gamings in the uk uh warfighter engaged engaged there's a few others too that help with funding and also some local center for independent living's might have funding as well and i think that about covers it um and i know i said it like 80 times but please let me know um what most interests you on hearing next because i would love to put together a presentation about that so i can get more in depth um but yeah thank you everyone for joining i hope you all have a great day and tyler also added a video of some of the gaming work that they've done oh nice and all of the stuff you put in the chat tyler i'll add that to the resource guide so everyone can have that i'll put my email in there too if you if you ever need any of that stuff i can check that out for sure i know i already wrote down your name and i was going to look up your email from the registrations to reach out yeah and um everyone you're free to go thank you for joining thank you for joining everyone um i did put the link to our to kind of give us feedback and also to let abby know um if there's any other gaming at that you're interested in or just in general to let our team know if there's any other assistive technology categories that you're interested in learning more about thanks jonah thank you for joining yes and thank you tyler for um adding so much the presentation is really appreciated and and someone did just ask in the chat to provide the link of the zac video um and uh i did send that to them directly but also i'll put that in the chat for everyone but i will also include that in the resource guide which i'm going to add some more things to it and that in the recording of this um will probably be sent out uh tomorrow morning hey perfect yeah awesome man thank you so much for letting me let me talk about makers making change too appreciate that and everything uh i think there's lots of good collaboration pieces here too so i'll reach out to you guys um on on instagram i think i think that's why i found this i'll reach out there and maybe we can communicate there but but yeah have a great rest of you guys today and thank you so much awesome thank you thank you everyone have a good day

2022-08-13 17:28

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