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When computer science professor Gary Bishop looks at a Dance Dance Revolution video game, he doesn't see just the latest gadget, he sees a tool he can adapt for kids with disabilities.
For instance, Bishop, a 2008 Kauffman Fellow, and a team of students from his 2004 software engineering class hijacked a Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) pad to create a "Braille twister" game for children ages 2 to 8 who are visually impaired or blind.
The team used a $15 adapter to plug the DDR pad into an ordinary computer, then programmed software that allows kids to spell Braille symbols using the DDR pad. (The six outer squares on the pad correspond to the six dots in a Braille cell.)
Braille twister is part of a suite of games that Bishop and students developed when they found out that when students in N.C. schools go to computer class each week, there was nothing for the blind students to do.
There just aren't enough cool tools out there for kids with disabilities, Bishop says, especially affordable ones. But by making small modifications to the hardware that's already available, he works to fill that void and make a big difference in children's' lives.
Kauffman Faculty Fellowships have been offered the past three years by the Institute for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences as part of the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative (CEI).
Simple adaptations yield huge returns
Since they don't see, blind babies often delay exploring and crawling, which means they don't develop upper body strength.
Braille twister helps the children not only learn Braille but also improve their upper body strength. The children know which square they've pressed because each square plays a different animal sound, like a cow or horse, but they've got to press pretty hard to hear the sound. So, they get a little workout.
Bishop's passion for accessibility software began back in 2001 when he met Jason Morris, who was a classics graduate student at the time and is blind. The two worked together to improve software that Bishop and students had designed that uses sound to allow blind people to use maps.
Since then Bishop and generations of students in his computer science classes have developed games that enable blind children and, more recently, students with other disabilities, to learn and have fun at the same time.
Like the other applications Bishop has developed, the "Braille twister" software is available to anyone for free. And it doesn't cost much for users to get the equipment needed. A DDR pad can be purchased on Amazon.com for $6.79. A computer adapter costs about $15.
Bishop plans to keep pursuing this model of making simple adaptations to games and tools that are already widely available and don't cost much.
"The intersection between disabled people and rich people is very small," Bishop said.
Sustainability would expand access to more children in need
With support from the department of computer science in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences, Bishop pursues such projects to the exclusion of the research he once conducted in such areas as 3D computer graphics. But he wants to ensure the software stays free of charge, and he wants to reach more children.
So this semester, with the help of a Kaufmann Fellowship, Bishop is exploring ways to make his social enterprise sustainable.
"I'm looking at ways to get a sufficiently continuous revenue stream to support students, and maybe a staff person to provide some continuity. Students come and go," he said.
He's also exploring ways he might charge small fees for some aspects of the software while still making it available to kids who need it.
"Schools actually have some money to pay for accessibility tools that their students need, but very often there's not enough of that money," he said. "And I really hate the idea of a kid not having access for want of a few dollars."
One possible model is to continue to provide the software to all students for free, but charge schools reasonable fees for an enhanced version that enables teachers to measure and track progress.
Bishop also pursues additional partnerships such as those he's formed with orientation and mobility teachers in the public schools.
In conjunction with the UNC Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, Bishop and students are beginning to develop software to enable communication for children with cerebral palsy and other conditions.
He's also exploring a partnership with UNC's School of Education.
Bishop and his students take every chance they get to test their software in schools. Once a year the computer science department hosts Maze Day. Visually impaired and blind students in grades K-12 and their parents and teachers visit the computer science department to test the latest games from Bishop and students. This year, about 75 children from around North Carolina and a few other states will attend.
That means the undergraduates who program the software often get to meet children who use the games they've created.
"One of my students said, 'This is the first thing I've done in school that's mattered,'" Bishop said.
"You learn a ton getting kids to use this stuff," he said. "You thought your software was perfect, and they break it."
