Long time, no see...

Two months since my last post. What happened to January? Familial illness, mostly - three different maladies have worked their way through Clan Holt, necessitating days off work, school and nursery (and days off work to look after children who are off school and nursery), which combined with exam marking, launching new modules, running Applicant Days, as well as writing grants and papers, and supporting PhD students coming up to the finish line on their PhDs have all pushed blogging to the bottom of the pile. The arrival of the Raspberry Pi 2 didn't help either.

Still, things are calming down at last, and opportunities to write blog posts are starting to bubble up again, so hopefully you'll be hearing more from me in the coming weeks!

It's also worth saying that 2014 came to a sad end, with Bipin Bhakta (the driving force behind the rehabilitation bit of our rehabilitation robotics bit, and the man who first got me working on user-centred design with children, and so effectively shaped my entire career from 2006 onwards) and Gert Jan Gelderblom (leader of the working group I belong to in LUDI, and a prominent figure in that network), both passing away during December. I'll miss them both. God rest.

Merry Christmas one and all...

Well,  I'd had it in mind to write two blog posts before the end of the year (other than one to say "Merry Christmas"): one on the robotics facility launch,  and one on FATKAT - the Finger and Thumb Kinetic Assessment tool (the device formerly known as "the manipulandum").

But as ever,  my posting plans have gang aglee, due to the end of term rush and the need to nurse two theses to submission, and away days and grant proposals. Somehow, blog posts are always bottom of the list! But I say that every time,  if course.

Suffice to say that in January I'll give a 2014 retrospective and see how things figured out against the goals I set last January: and what I hope will come out of 2015. And I'll give you that long awaited  FATKAT update.

For now,  this is just a placeholder to remind you that the blog is still alive, I haven't forgotten it - and of course, to wish you all a Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year.

And in true Columbo fashion, there's just one more thing: you should really,  really check out the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures this year.  They are given by the University of Manchester's Danielle George, and is all about Hacking the Home. They chime nicely with the Calderdale event I blogged about from September,  and she hits the notes on playfulness and experimentation that have got me so excited in my recent discussions on the Maker Movement.

And if that doesn't tempt you,  then surely the prospect of a robot orchestra playing the Dr Who theme (inspired by and including our very own Dr Andy Jackson's robo-bass player!) will. I'm looking forward to it!

Anyway, peace and goodwill to all men,  women and robots: I'm signing of to eat mince pies,  turkey and Christmas pud, and keep my fingers crossed that Santa's got a wi-fi adapter and TFT touchscreen for my Raspberry Pi.

Enjoy!

LUDI

Teaching term is always a busy time - especially around this mid-term point. Work set in the first half of term must be marked, while other projects are just starting off, and lectures still need to be delivered. Still, I managed to find time to attend the first full meeting of the LUDI network in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania at the back end of October. Of course, if you've been following my Twitter feed, you'll already know that, since I tweeted pretty much the whole event, including some snaps of Vilnius.

First up, a little background. LUDI is an EU COST (Co-ordination on Science and Technology) action. It isn't a research grant exactly - it doesn't pay for any research to be undertaken. Instead, as the name suggests, it's all about co-ordination: create a network, surveying current research to identify gaps and so create the opportunities for future research collaborations. LUDI's focus is on play for disabled children. I won't give you all the details: you can find some details on the COST website, and at LUDI's own website, which will be kept up-to-date with the network's activities.

LUDI is concerned with play for play's sake, not play-like activities: so no therapeutic play - just play as an end in itself. So from my projects, Together Through Play is in; myPAM is out. Which isn't to say that play-like activities are bad, or irrelevant, just that play for play's sake in disabled children has so far received a lot less attention.

There are four working groups (WG), looking at the definition and major concepts of play (WG1); technologies for enabling play (WG2 - that's the one I'm in!), the current context of play for disabled children (WG3 - my colleague, Angharad Beckett from Sociology is leading this one!) and looking at the aspirations and views of children and parents (WG4). My working group is looking to compile a database of systems that have been used for enabling play, and what evaluation has been undertaken of them.

Of course, the real benefit of these things is that you get to find out about other research and spend some time really thinking about and discussing new ideas. Here are a few of the really interesting things that stood out for me.

First and foremost, that play is the goal, and learning is incidental - a point made by Playware's Jari Due Jessen. We learn and practice skills in order to play - not the other way round. It's easy to put the cart before the horse, especially with educational, therapeutic and even accessible games or toys. The problem is that if the goal isn't play but something else, then the motivation often isn't there. That has significant implications for Button Bash, and the Together Through Play - did we overemphasize accessibility at the expense of playfulness? Could we have done more to find both?

This was neatly captured by the second thing that stood out for me: Prof. Anita Bundy's (of Sydney University) Test of Playfulness, which provided a framework for observing how playful children were. This captures the main ingredients of play (level of control, suspension of reality, source of motivation, and framing), and provides a neat way of thinking through the whole issue of what play is. It emphasises the creative aspect, and the ability to choose freely - that's interesting, because many videogames are the exact opposite. Not all, of course, and there's a reason why "sandbox" games have become so popular - but even so. Options are limited to a pre-defined set, and simple control schemes tend to limit options even further.

The Test of Playfulness also appeared in the third item of note: the work of Kim Adams, Adriana Rios and Pedro Encarnação - who have been doing some interesting work using a Lego Mindstorms based manipulator, that allows children to interact with their environment through switch control. Fascinating stuff - and particularly interesting because it focuses on extending the agency of the child into the environment, allowing them to use it in surprising and playful ways.

All told, a really interesting time, and it's left me with lots of food for thought! More as it comes.

Hack the Home Halifax!

You can tell teaching has resumed - I'm pretty sure yesterday was late September, and yet here we are - a quarter of the way into term! The blog, as ever, goes to the bottom of the To Do List, despite a steady accumulation of things to add. But with new lectures all written, exam nearly ready, upcoming trip to Lithuania for the LUDI workshop sorted out, projects allocated, a PhD thesis examined, another reviewed - time has finally turned up when I can actually get down to some more Blogging.

What I wanted to reflect on today was the Hack the Home event that ran in Halifax with Calderdale Council, FutureGov and Enabled by Design last month. I've been following the Enabled by Design Designathons from their inception, so I jumped at the chance to get involved and provide technical support.

 

The event was taking place at the mighty Dean Clough Mills in Halifax. I have a soft spot for Halifax. Not least because you get some spectacular views, but also because Eureka,  the Children's Museum is there ( and very handy from the Station!), and one of my favourite  bands (not-so-popular beat combo and pioneers of Gothic Metal,  Paradise Lost) hail from the City.

 

If you're not familiar with the Designathon concept, it's this: you get a group of service users and staff from Calderdale Council, put them together with designers, and get them to brainstorm solutions to the service users' problems. Prototyping and testing is a huge part of this, since ideas that sound good on paper don't always work out in practice. Normally, the Designathon lasts two days, giving time to make higher fidelity prototypes to test out on the second day. In this case, only one day was available,  so low fidelity prototypes were the order of the day. But you learn a lot through lo-fi prototyping and testing, and part of the goal was to introduce the concepts of user-centred design, rapid prototyping and  bespoke manufacturing to Calderdale. Calderdale Council have a big push on digital innovation, and they're aware that they have a really strong manufacturing base that can provide these services. The big question for them is how they can bring together these businesses,  their clients and the R&D activities of nearby Universities, which was why they had brought Futuregov and Enabled by Design in.

 

It was a good day. We had five service users, and about forty-five participants from Calderdale Council and local creative (including my colleague Dan Trowsdale from the University of Leeds, and two of our students). This gave five teams of ten, to brainstorm around each user's problems (including the user themselves), each with a facilitator from FutureGov, plus technical support from Mike Willshaw from Radius Creatives (whose 3D printer was a huge hit), and my good self.  There was a lot of energy, and I was really pleased by the way everyone rolled up their sleeves and pitched in. Everyone got into the swing of sketching and model making, which was a relief - there's always the worry that people will be too shy.

 

It's difficult to convey the whole thing in words. Suffice to say it was an exciting day, and a great opportunity to establish links with Calderdale Council on which we hope to build in the future - we're already looking at getting some projects together to address their needs, and hopefully this is the first step in an ongoing partnership. It was also great to meet the FutureGov chaps (particularly Marc Barto, with who had been tirelessly working to set the event up!), and Denise Stephens who set up Enabled by Design. I had some really good chats with service user David Jacques and dedicated biker Andrew Evans, who introduced me to the "Nippi". Both were really excited by the opportunities this opened up.

 

Also - and it's a big also - I was reminded that actually, designing is something that everyone can do. And I was also struck by something that Andrew said: that this wasn't just about design, or about providing a service, but about allowing disabled people to have an active role in designing their environment and future, and take their rightful place in society. Amen to that. I hope we can achieve it.

A Playday Post Mortem ( Part 2)

September's an interesting time for the academic. The divergent stage of early summer - when you dream up new ideas, new studies,  new proposals,  new modules and assignments - gives way to the convergent stages of actually finishing things,  and deciding what will be kicked into next year, or given up on completely. It's been a good summer - a busy one (as the chaos in my office will attest!) but a good one. Lots of opportunities: the manipulandum brought to fruition, a mechanical systems catalogue written, a Playday event run,  new links made, a proposal submitted,  a new module designed,  and a Hack the Home event attended. Plus three Open Days, two PhD students passed viva and corrections. Yeah, busy. But all good stuff - and all in good time. 

I'll have a write up of the exciting Hack the Home event from last week soon.  But first,  I really should get the second part of my Playday Post Mortem up!

In essence: could we have done better?

The answer is: of course we could - but how?  Well,  here are my main thoughts:

1) Better External Branding: we had been warned by Breeze that we needed a snazzy stand to attract people in. And we put a fair bit of effort into this: horse cushions, banners, posters of the Bashians. And then,  because of the rain,  we posted them all at the back of the tent. They looked good,  but you had to get quite close before you saw them.  When you're competing with inflatables,  dress up and craft sessions in a big space, it's difficult to be to be the centre of attention. If I were doing this again,  I'd have a big roller banner at the front of the stand to say what we were, so people could see it from a distance. If people came looking for Button Bash,  it wasn't easy to find us - until you'd found us,  if that makes sense? So, that's one lesson learned.

2) A Snappy Message: How do you describe Button Bash in a few seconds?  Accessible Videogame?  Inclusive?  Switch-based? It's all a bit jargon heavy. And if your core message is: Disabled Children,  Here is a Game You Can Play, then the only hook you've got is patronising at best.  I've yet to figure out the best way of selling this: I just know that we need a better-articulated message about what the game is and its selling points. One to muse over.

3) Going for the Relaxed Opening: Breeze offer Relaxed Opening on certain days, where they open early for disabled children to have a chance to try things out before things get too hectic. They did This on the 7th of August, and - logically - this would have been a good day for us to come on.  However, we were fixated on Playday: so we went for the 6th. That had its advantages from a publicity perspective,  but I still feel that we missed a trick by not going on the day most likely to attract disabled children.

So there you go: the three main messages,  and next time we do this ( and there will be a next time,  make no mistake! ), that's would I'd do differently!

A Playday Post Mortem (part 1)

Hmmm... that title looks alarming like some sort of murder mystery. But here I mean post mortem in the "project review" sense. It seemed like a good time to draw a line under Together Through Play, and since Playday was pure Grand finale,  I thought it would be a good time to review what went right, what went wrong,  and what I've learned for the future. As ever, let's start with the "What was good", before "What could have been better" (you can tell I've done a teaching certificate,  eh? ). Time is short today,  so I'll do what was good today,  and the improvements in my next post.

What was Good

1) That we did it at all.  That's my number one.  It was great to actually show our work of and talk to the public about it. It was great to see the reactions we got,  even the unexpected problems ( as we shall see next post!). I always enjoy showing off what we're doing.  Partly because I'm a show-off, but also because I like to know whether what I'm doing actually means something.

2) Taking a trial run that morning. I'd made some late improvements to the Button Bash code on my laptop. Upon copying it back to the Windows tablet we were using, it wouldn't run at all. I found this out when I did one last check on the morning before setting off. The problem was the number of the COM port for the arduino in the code. Trivial,  easily corrected,  but a headache,  and it would have beem a load more hassle trying to fix during set up. I've demo'd enough kiss to know that you should always test on the morning!

3) Charging the Tablet beforehand.  There was a delay in getting power to us.  In the end it got sorted out in good time before starting,  but knowing I had two hours' charge on the tablet meant there was no stress at all. We had a buffer, even if we didn't need it.

4) Bright posters, bunting and horsey seats. These were courtesy of Sinead Dumigan, one of my Product Design students who supplied the graphics for the game. When you're working on a game,  it's easy to focus on what's on the screen.  You forget that from even four feet away, or just looks like a tablet. Add the posters, bunting and horse seats, and you suddenly have something that looks interesting from a distance and pulls people in.

These were the good.  But what could we have done better?  Tune in next time!

PhD studentship in rehabilitation of grip function

In case you're interested, I've got a potential PhD Studentship up for grabs on Development of a Biofeedback Device to Restore Grasp Function in Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury (click on the link to go the application page!).

This is co-supervised by Drs Sarah Astill and Rachel Coates over in Sports and Exercise Science. Well co-supervised by Rachel Coates and me since Sarah is the lead supervisor!

Anyway, this will look at extending the work I've been doing on the manipulandum to measure grip forces (currently being refined and souped by the outstanding Stuart Watt, a phenomenal undergraduate here at Leeds - thanks to the financial generosity of National Instruments who have sponsored the work!), and developing it to provide feedback to aid the recovery of grip function in individuals with Spinal Cord Injury.

It's a 3.5 year studentship funded via EPSRC, preferred start date is this October, but could be delayed as far as April 2015. The deadline for applications is the 29th of August (two weeks tomorrow - yeah, I know. I know.) Most importantly, it's a super-exciting area for us to be moving into, and I'm champing at the bit to get the manipulandum doing more than just measuring, and actually building in the therapeutic functions. Help me out, people - let's get this show on the road!