Long-overdue thesis update
I haven't posted here in a while, but much has happened since I walked into BCID in early February. I've built two iterations of a prototype, tightened up my story, worked in feedback from disabled people I've met, and started meeting with an amazing thesis advisor.
Let's start with my thesis advisor. Her name is Chancey, and she works at the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, where one of her recent projects is Dimensions: Community Tools for Creating Tactile Graphics & Objects. She’s been really great at helping me think through how people might live and interact with furniture robots, giving me examples of existing interfaces that are designed for disabled people that I might learn from and incorporate into my project, and planning out next steps together. We missed our meeting this week since she was at the annual CSUN assistive technology conference in San Diego, and I’m looking forward to our upcoming meeting to hear what she learned out there.
On February 22nd, I presented my thesis project to a support group that meets weekly at the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled. I was really nervous: I had no idea how the project would be received, how much explanation of the tech I would have to do, and whether the idea of a robot that will likely be quite expensive compared to typical furniture would have any appeal.
I needn’t have worried. When I showed the audience the animations from this post, they started responding with questions and ideas before I had the chance to describe the animation to the visually-impaired members of the support group. Unfortunately I was so caught up in answering questions and digging deeper into the ideas that were coming at me that I neglected the non-sighted members of the audience, and for that I’m truly regretful.
In general, the feedback I got was related to how the furniture could better serve people who use powered wheelchairs, things to consider for the furniture to be eligible for Medicare/Medicaid, and concerns about durability and performance. In more detail:
Height-adjustability was a big hit. People set up their power chairs differently depending on their height and what feels comfortable to them, and as a result often find themselves unable to sit under a table. It made me think about how it is common for an office chair to be height-adjustable, but not for desks and tables. This makes sense when you’re thinking about accommodating people of different heights and body shapes, but if surfaces were also adjustable then you would accommodate even more people.
“We knock things over all the time, so this thing has to be waterproof.” Durability was a big concern. Waterproofing to protect from accidental spills was a top priority. The ability to withstand bumps without rolling away or falling over is important too. A subthread of this conversation was the idea of having a lip around the top surface of the furniture to prevent things from rolling off.
Stability is crucial if the furniture is going to support the weight of someone leaning on it and using the grab handles to stand up from a seated position or transfer from a wheelchair to a bed or a couch. There was concern that because the robots are wheeled, they would roll away under weight. This was a good insight, and a future version of my prototype should have a smart way of locking the wheels or lifting the wheels off the ground when someone puts a lot of weight on it. This also brought about discussion about how powerful the motors would be, and whether they would be able to generate enough lift.
One lady was very into the idea of using the furniture as a “smart walker,” and this launched a discussion about how fast the furniture should roll, and how one might control its speed and direction manually. She wanted variable speed, “for good days and bad days.”
Everyone wanted lots of storage on the furniture. The idea that they could have things they need frequently—whether it is their phone, remote controls, meds, reading materials, or anything really—on a rolling cart that could come to them wherever they were in their homes was a very popular one.
People wanted more features: a way to open doors, a built-in light for people with low-vision, simple and hassle-free charging (with a meter to indicate how much charge is left), help putting on shoes... all ideas that lead to different opportunities to explore.
One person shared an idea that she had been talking about with her coworker for a while: a “picker-upper” that could help someone who has fallen out of a wheelchair or off of their couch to get up without assistance. She really wanted this device, since the only option in most cases is to call emergency services, who would then proceed to knock down her door in order to enter her apartment and help her. She lives alone, and worries that if this were ever to happen, her landlord would have enough reason to evict her, meaning she would end up in an assisted living facility (a “home”)—something she really doesn’t want to happen.
Finally, it was great to hear people say they liked the style of the furniture and that they wanted it to be “colourful” and “pretty.” I heard: “Everything that is designed for us is medical and ugly.”
After I got my feet wet with prototyping robotics with ROS (the Robot Operating System), I ordered more parts and built a bigger, sturdier version of the robot base out of plywood. My goal was to be able to put existing pieces of furniture on it and see how people react to furniture gaining autonomy.
Making robots is hard, and I’m grateful for open-source projects like ROS and Linorobot that make getting started much easier.
I’m currently in the process of building the next prototype iteration. This time, I’m making the whole thing: autonomous base, cart-like top, and height-adjusting motors. I started off by ordering the parts I need, and modeling the furniture around them in CAD. I designed it so that it could be cut out of a single sheet of half-inch plywood on the CNC machine at our prototyping lab, the Visible Futures Lab.
I’m in the process of programming the height adjustment and the voice interface for it. I’m hoping to test it with users in the upcoming week.
