By MARTY LEVINE
A new community of practice for assistive tech makers — those devising tools for physical accessibility using 3D printers — is being gathered from Pitt and the greater Pittsburgh area for people “to have an opportunity for support, to network and most importantly share what they are working on,” says Laura Trybus.
“I know people who are using 3D printers and they get two-thirds of the way through,” says Trybus, assistive technology specialist and educational software consultant with the Center for Teaching and Learning, “and it’s always really helpful to talk to people who are doing the same thing: Have you encountered the same (issues)? Do you have a solution? And there is nothing like this in Pittsburgh that exists right now.
“We want to look at the possibilities for things we haven’t thought of yet,” she says.
This first community gathering — aimed at “all creators, innovators and disability advocates,” organizers say — is set for 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. March 28 at the Inglis Innovation Center of Pittsburgh in Bellevue. The center houses the Inglis Impact Accelerator, which supports entrepreneurs working in disability services and support, and is teaming with the Pitt Center for Teaching and Learning for this event.
Such gatherings, often in maker spaces, usually focus on assistive tech designs, says Cressida Magaro (the Teaching Center’s senior manager of learning environments), that “tend to be tailored to the individuals who are using them ... and there may not be manufacturers for these devices because there just aren’t enough people who need these devices to make it a viable business.”
“Or it is too expensive,” Trybus says.
Using a 3D printer, Magaro says, “in a lot of ways has been revolutionary. 3D printers always seem more complicated than they first appear. It takes many iterations to get it just going right. And the more people who can have eyeballs on your model, the better.”
“We are very glad to foster a collaboration among folks who didn’t know they were doing the same work — that’s very important to us,” says the Teaching Center’s director of academic support services, Erik Arroyo. “Our role is fostering this collaboration across the Pittsburgh region.” Even beyond the creation of specific new devices, “one of the outcomes is the collaboration itself.”
Trybus has often worked with individual groups in the Teaching Center’s Open Lab, including a student organization that held a build party to make mobility trainers for children — essentially modified wheelchairs that help toddlers with disabilities get around. “They wanted parts that would need to be 3D printed ahead of time,” says Trybus, and the Open Lab was able to accomplish that. Then, she said, if a toddler’s family suggests a modification once the devices are in use, “we can make changes and print out another one.”
“Sometimes, the things we build come out of the requests we get from our teachers or researchers,” she notes, such as a math instructor’s need for tactile materials for a blind student to participate in a graphing exercise in class.
“This event opens us up” for a larger group of participants to discover how their ideas might turn into reality, she says of the March 28 gathering. The majority of the activities will occur in person but a virtual component will be made available to participants prior to the event.
A second gathering of this community of practice is already being planned for Pitt’s campus, Trybus says. “My hope is to create connections and collaborations with additional partners, whether inside or outside of Pitt.”
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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