Professional Learning Workshop: Adaptive Toy Making

Are you looking for projects that your school’s STEAM program or club can use to develop and hone basic making skills? Are you curious about additional, real-life applications for the tools and skills your students are learning? Are you wondering how toys can be hacked to make them more accessible to children with physical disabilities?

This hands-on workshop will introduce participants to assistive technology making skills to create usable access products. Participants will learn basic soldering to join wire segments and assemble mono and stereo components for use in a variety of assistive technology applications. Those skills – along with some 3D-printed parts – will be applied to create a mechanical switch that could be used by an individual with physical disabilities. Each participant will also make a battery interrupter and switch-adapt a stuffed, electronic toy that can be used with the scratch-built switch.

Lunch will be provided.

Who Should Attend? | This workshop is targeted for assistive technology specialists, occupational therapists, special education teachers, and STEAM-curious teachers interested in expanding maker opportunities into authentic special education applications!

Cost | Free