CanAssist

The very first design was created for Shannon Bromley, a sweet, quiet girl with cerebral palsy, who owns a small dog named Austin. When the Bromley family approached CanAssist, Shannon had very little independence or control in her daily life, including her interaction with her own pet. Kathy, Shannon's mom, emphasized how much this lack of independence affected her daughter's life in the family home. The Indoor Ball Launcher for Dogs, which CanAssist created in response, is an adaptation of an off-the-shelf product called GoDogGo. This commercial product is battery-operated, can be used indoors, and includes a remote control that lets the user send balls whizzing across the room. While the device allows people to play fetch with a dog without having to throw a ball, it still requires that they be able to operate several buttons on a remote. This made it unmanageable for Shannon. "We took the circuit board out of the remote and integrated it into our own system," recalls Darcy Lane, CanAssist's hardware manager. "We put our own circuitry into the GoDogGo device, so that with a push of one simple button, the motor is wound up and the ball is launched."

The Polecam Power Chair, which allows users to keep pace with people and objects in motion, takes advantage of the heavy and stable characteristics of power wheelchairs and the precise joystick control typical of experienced power chair users. This technology provides disabled individuals with the tools necessary to take their first steps in becoming professional videographers and enables those who have suffered injuries to continue in their careers. CanAssist engineers have outfitted a power wheelchair with an eight-foot Polecam boom arm and a pan-tilt mechanism. A joystick controls the pan-tilt movement of a high-definition camera mounted at the end of the Polecam boom. The boom arm is raised or lowered with a mouth-activated sip-and-puff device, allowing the camera to traverse an arc, the highest point of which is more than six feet above the ground. A high-definition LCD monitor attached to the power chair provides the user with a live view of the shoot. More info: http://www.canassist.ca/EN/main/programs/technologies-and-devices/employment/polecam-power-chair.html

The nature of Rachel's job demands that she have a lockable filing cabinet. Yet because of her disability, she has difficulty using a conventional cabinet, in which the vertical design requires a lot of bending and reaching. On Rachel's behalf, the UVic Facilities Department researched accessible office furniture that was already available in the market, but could find no filing cabinet that met Rachel's specific needs. So CanAssist was approached. Rachel with CanAssist's Darcy, left, and co-op student Mike. When CanAssist engineers met with Rachel to discuss her requirements for an ideal filing cabinet, all agreed that it should be easy to access, lockable and sit at a height that would make managing files from a wheelchair comfortable. "We looked at all the options, including adapting an existing filing cabinet," recalls Darcy Lane, CanAssist's Hardware Manager. "But in the end, we decided to start from scratch." CanAssist mechanical engineers built a wooden filing cabinet that sits horizontally, with vertical slots for easy file storage. The cabinet was designed to sit on a table at the level of Rachel's hands, so that she wouldn't have to bend down or reach up when adding or removing a file.

This is just the situation that was brought to CanAssist by two clients - who required two completely different solutions. The first client, Emily, is a pianist working on her Masters Degree in music. Although she has full use of her upper body, Emily requires a wheelchair and cannot use her legs to push a piano's pedals. Her instructors at the University of Tennessee felt that at Emily's level of expertise, it was very important that she be able to use the pedal that sustains notes. So Emily's aunt contacted a friend who helped search for someone who could help. They discovered CanAssist and sent us Emily's specifications. The CanAssist team set to work, creating a two-part technology: a mechanical device that sits on the floor and attaches to a piano pedal, and a headband containing a wireless sensor that measures changes in its own position. The sensor wirelessly communicates its position to the device on the floor, activating it to push down or release the pedal. So, wearing the headband, when Emily tilts her head down, the pedal is pushed down and the notes she is playing are sustained. By tilting her head up, the pedal is released.