Courtesy of Kelly Chan ‘24
16 hours ago
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Big Red Adaptive Play and Design Re-Wires Toys for Accessibility
By Caroline Michailoff | 16 hours ago
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The Big Red Adaptive Play and Design Initiative, a student-run assistive technology organization, aims to bridge the gap between Cornell students and the Ithaca special needs community by re-engineering toys, making devices more accessible for all.
Founded by Big Red APDI President Michael Dicpinigaitis ’24 in 2021, the organization re-wires battery-operated toys and devices to make them more accessible to individuals with physical disabilities. These technologies are donated to organizations to supply the need for adaptive play and assistive technology solutions.
“I originally came up with the idea for this initiative after seeing a video of how a student with a physical disability could play with a specially wired battery-operated toy by using a more accessible switch button to overcome his disability,” Dicpinigaitis said. “I found that these uniquely wired toys called ‘switch-adapted toys’ were commercially available but that they were super expensive to those who needed them most.”
According to Dicpinigaitis, most battery-operated toys and devices can be re-wired for those with special needs. Big [...]