Fantagstic!

If you liked that guest post an engineering student wrote for the Safe & Sound blog last month, you’re gonna love this update on what Ebay and his classmates came up with as ways I can keep track of the colors of my clothes. Freshmen in other Design Thinking and Communication class sections were working on other projects for people with disabilities at the same time, and here are some examples

• A man who uses a wheelchair wanted an easier way to fold up the footrests when it came to transferring into a car or a regular chair
• A man with cerebral palsy was looking for a more efficient way to pull his trousers up on his own
• Occupational therapists asked for a device that might encourage their clients with Parkinson’s disease to do finger exercises on-the-go
• The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago hoped a class could figure out a way for clients with visual impairments to know how fast (and at what speed) they were walking on exercise treadmills
• a woman who uses a wheelchair and enjoys outdoor concerts was looking for a way to slide from her chair onto the lawn, then get back into her chair again on her own when the concert was over.

Ebay’s engineering class divided into four different groups to tackle my color identification problem, and Whitney and I traveled to a Design Expo at Northwestern Saturday to hear

A poster from the Fantagstic team’s presentation.

all of the students present their completed projects. Sixteen students had visited our apartment in February with prototypes ranging from carabiners to iron-on tags to QR codes that my talking iPhone could read to me, and seeing (okay, touching) what these four teams had come up with in the end made me glad I’d come out of the closet about my wardrobe woes.

Right now I put a safety pin in the tag of anything I own that is black, and a paper clip on anything white. I wear other colors, too, and I memorize what color those other things are by the feel of the clothing. On their February visit, the students watched me go through my closets and asked lots and lotss of questions. In the end all four teams expanded on my tried and true safety-pin method, each team inventing different things to hang from the pin to correspond to the color of the item.

Ebay’s team came up with acrylic shapes on cloth tags called “Fantagstic!” They reasoned that cloth tags would be lightweight, so I could use two or more at a time to identify multi-colored items. The tags another team came up with were laser-cut acrylic shapes called “Depindables”. The tags all the teams came up with had been tested to withstand high temperatures in the washer and dryer. “Tag Team” was the only team to use traditional Braille code on its tags – the other teams learned from research that a majority of people who are visually impaired do not read Braille. Ebay’s team designed its own palettes of shapes (lines, S’s, C-shaped arrows, dots, corners, and triangles) that they’d tested on me earlier to confirm the shapes were easy to feel and differentiate from each other. The “Code of Many Colors” team used small glass beads on the safety pin: one bead means black, two beads mean white, and so on. Judges from engineering firms were on hand to decide on winners for each proposal, and the winner for mine was…drumroll, please…Tag Team!

The winning “Tag Team” team

The Tag Team system is more than a label to safety-pin onto my clothes. It’s also a way to organize my closet and laundry. Tag Team includes a laundry hamper that holds a number of mesh bags, each bag with a tag attached that corresponds with a single color. They figure doing laundry will be easier if I don’t mix all my clothing in the hamper, only to have to resort it all again when the wash cycle is over. “All you do is put your clothes in the bag it belongs in, take the bag out, tighten the string, and throw the bag in the washing machine.”

What about times I’m too lazy to put dirty clothing into the proper mesh bag, you ask? “No worries,” said Tag Team with pride. With the Tag Team system, everything you wear has a tag pinned inside of it. ”Wake up the next morning, feel the tag on the shirt you wore the night before, and you’ll know which bag to put it in in your Tag Team hamper.”

I had to hand it to ‘em. But if you ask me, all the teams at the design expo were winners. These kids are just freshmen, and not only have they learned about design process, but also how much it can mean to work together to help people with unusual, unique, and unmet needs. I was the biggest winner of all, though: I got to work side-by-side with these talented and thoughtful young people, and when design expo was over Saturday afternoon, I walked out with custom-made prototypes of all the tags!

Folks I talked to Saturday from the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University told me they’re looking for new project proposals from people with disabilities and organizations who work with us. If there’s something you need and you live in the Chicago area, I encourage you to submit a proposal soon.

They even learned how to sew

People stare at my Seeing Eye dog and me sometimes. Who can blame them? We’re an unusual pair! But as long as they’re watching, I want to look good.

So when I heard that the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University was looking for projects to help people with disabilities, I suggested they have their undergraduates try to come up with some easy way we blind folks could identify the color of our clothing. Right now I put a safety pin in the tag of anything I own that is black, and a paper clip on anything white. I wear other colors, too, and I memorize what color those other things are by the feel of the clothing.

My proposal got a thumbs-up, and one of the students agreed to write a guest post to explain what the design experience has been like from his point of view.

Design thinking

by Nadhipat “Ebay” Vaniyapun

My name is Ebay and I am one of the engineering students at Northwestern University working to create a color identification system for Beth. Design Thinking and Communication is a required class for engineering students, and I believe that it is required for a very good reason. There is no other class that gives you real design experience while putting the fruit of your hard work back into helping the community.

I actually chose to study at Northwestern partly to take this class. I went to Concord Academy in Massachusetts and did a number of engineering projects in high school, including a custom physical therapy walker for a toddler who has cerebral palsy. Our walker had the same functionality as a commercial walker, but it can be disassembled, it’s adjustable for his growth, and it includes a board for him to play with his toys. It was really something to see a little kid being able to walk and play without falling over, and to realize that he didn’t have that kind of freedom until we made that therapy walker for him. You could say I was hooked from the get-go.

I admit I didn’t know much about blindness before starting this project. The last time I had any real contact with someone who was blind was probably when I was around 8 years old living in Bangkok, Thailand. I visited what could be called a nursing home for the blind as part of a school service trip. Everyone there was blind from birth and could read Braille. They got most of their income from crafts, giving lectures and receiving donations. I didn’t see their wardrobe, but I remember that the speaker wore plain, dark colored clothes while the kids wore something with mismatched colors.

With that vague recollection in mind, I couldn’t quite connect the dots with this project prompt until I met Beth for the first time. I just didn’t expect her to have a large wardrobe of clothing that wouldn’t go well together. I didn’t expect patterns or a lot of colors. I was also completely unaware that there were so many people who went blind later in life, and that not all of them read Braille. I just never thought blind people might put this much thought into the clothing they wear.

Students observed Beth sorting through her closet, looking for ways to make it easier.

This project is very different from my high school projects where I worked with tools I was used to and could easily imagine how I’d solve the problem. I guess I do miss using lots and lots of power tools a little. Fabric is not a very common engineering material, and all of us on our team even learned how to sew in order to speed up the mock up process. You also really have to use your head to make the color identification system as intuitive as possible, knowing that the user’s perception and priorities are different from you. Even if you pretended to be blind, you wouldn’t be able to pick up small details from touch or know what features of the clothing a blind person would use to pick it out from the rest.

Working with Beth has been a pleasure. There were even times when we felt uncomfortable ourselves asking difficult questions but she had no problem answering us. Thanks to that, we got a lot of unexpected data and are now incorporating everything we learned into our designs. Two things that still get me every time we visit her is how dark her room is and how many articles of clothing she can identify quickly through touch. I’m sure we wouldn’t be able to do the same without lighting.

We’ve gotten close as a group through this project. We usually meet twice a week, have a team dinner on one of the days and occasionally hang out even when it’s not about class. Every time we visit Beth, we also eat together at the restaurants in the area. I know my team a lot better now not only as colleagues, but also as friends. I have enjoyed everything I’ve done so far, and I have no doubt that we will deliver an excellent prototype.

Other Design Thinking and Communication classes at Northwestern are working on different projects to help people with disabilities, and all 50 teams will present their completed projects on Saturday afternoon, March 16. Awards for design and communication will be announced that day, too.

Next thing you know, I’ll be writing for Hallmark

I didn’t buy a lottery ticket last week. I wasn’t afraid of the odds, I just knew money couldn’t make me happier than I am right now.

I know, I know. Too many pink Sweet ‘n’ Low packets. But hey, it’s not all saccharine. There really is evidence-based research on this lottery happiness thing.

Back in 1978, psychologists from Northwestern University right here in Chicago published a study called Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Our Illinois State Lottery had just begun back then, and the researchers asked 22 winners to rate their happiness months after the initial elation of winning the big bucks. In addition, they asked the winners how much pleasure they were taking in mundane activities like reading a magazine or meeting friends for coffee. Then they interviewed 58 people who had not won the lottery but lived in the same neighborhoods as the winners. The results showed that months after the winners were announced, the non-winners were just about as happy as the lottery winners, And by then the so-called losers were finding much more pleasure in everyday activities than the winners were.

As long as they were at it, the researchers decided to interview 29 people who were injured in accidents that same lottery year, too. In each case, the accident left the victim paralyzed. After initial sadness and depression, the newly-disabled people rated their pleasure in everyday activities slightly higher than that of the lottery winners, and their life satisfaction was nearly the same.

Interesting.

It’s Monday. After I finish the cup of coffee Mike made and poured for me after we woke up together this morning, I’ll flip on the radio and listen to some pop music while getting dressed. Ben Folds? Jackson Five? Warren Zevon? Stevie Wonder? From there I’ll head outside with Whitney. It’s a cool, sunny, spring morning in Chicago. Maybe we’ll take the long way home, listen for birds, smell the lilacs.

Back in the apartment, I’ll spend a few hours on my part-time job for Easter Seals and then give Flo a call. She’ll tell me about everyone who phoned her over the weekend. She’ll say how much she is looking forward to sitting outside today and let me know what she has planned for the rest of the week. Her credo is to do only one thing each day that takes her out of her apartment. No more, no less.

Flo is one happy woman.

Our call will end the way it always does. “I love you, Mom.” “I love you, too.” Flo turns 96 later this month.

Out with Whitney again. Maybe this time I’ll brush her, too. Mike is working from home today, so I might listen to a book while waiting for him to finish. I’m re-reading my favorite book from childhood, one my older brothers and sisters read aloud to me when they were teaching me to read: The Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh.

After my trip to the 100 Acre Wood? Off to Costco! I’ll hang on to the back of the cart, eavesdrop on people from all walks of life, try to decipher the dozens of foreign languages I hear, all while Mike pulls us through the aisles. He’ll stop periodically, say “Feel this!” and drop an enormous oversized jar of some unknown substance into my hands. “Miracle Whip!” he’ll exclaim with glee. I always roll my eyes, but I can’t help but laugh, too. And I can’t help but relish, ahem, the $1.50 hot dog and pop we enjoy before we leave. Free refills, too!

After unloading the Land of the Giants groceries at home, we might slink over to Hackney’s to share some wine with friends: Mondays are half-price bottle nights.

Back in our apartment building, if our favorite maintenance man James is working, we’ll stop and talk baseball before stepping into the elevator. Opening day is coming up, Chicago! A dear old college friend emailed today to say he can’t make it to the White Sox home opener on April 13. He’s mailing us his tickets. For free. Who wouldn’t think they’d won the lottery after a day like today? And the thing that makes me the happiest: I didn’t even buy a ticket!

From Art & Craft to Garlic and Greens

I am thrilled to be presenting at a writer’s conference in nearby Evanston later this week along with the likes of Miles Harvey and Audrey Petty. What’s even more thrilling is that I call those two fine writers my friends.

That's Miles Harvey. (Photo by Matt Moyer.)

I met Miles long ago when both of us wrote for the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois. His first book The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime was a national and international bestseller. Another book, Painter in a Savage Land: The Strange Saga of the First European Artist in North America, received a 2008 Editors’ Choice award from Booklist. Miles used to light up the dingy Daily Illini production room in the basement of Illini Hall, and to this day, being around him makes me smile. I was delighted when he accepted a position at DePaul University, it meant he’d be staying here in Chicago, and I knew he would serve as a terrific mentor to hundreds of writing students there. His generosity of spirit encourages many a writer, including me, to keep at it.

I met Audrey Petty in Urbana, too. She’s the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and she and I took to each other the minute we met. Audrey is a Chicago native, and Mike and I have had the good fortune to meet and know her entire family. Her father, Joe Petty, is credited with getting the Chicago White Sox into the 2005 World Series. “MoJo” went with us to a playoff game against Boston, and he mesmerized everyone in the seats around us (and the team, too, of course) with his confidence and calm.

Audrey is back in Chicago now to work on an oral history book project gathering stories from residents of Chicago’s Henry Horner Homes, Robert Taylor Homes, Stateway Gardens and Cabrini-Green—all publicly-funded buildings that no longer exist. High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing will be published by Voice of Witness, the nonprofit division of McSweeney’s Books. And of course we all know that McSweeney’s is the brain child of yet another Daily illini alum: author Dave Eggers.

Dave wont’ be making an appearance at Art & Craft: Northwestern Summer Writers’ Conference this week, but Miles, Audrey and I will all be making presentations. Miles will lead a Reporting and Research 101 workshop and is also sitting on a panel called Writers Point of View: How I Got Published. Audrey’s workshop is called Fiction: Object Lessons and mine is Getting Children’s Books Published. I’m also sitting on a panel called Writing for Children/Young Audiences with Jim Aylesworth and Laurie Lawlor.

”Art and Craft: the Northwestern Summer Writers’ Conference” is for new writers, established writers, and anyone looking for a better understanding of the craft—and business—of writing. Some of the workshops are full, but you can still register for panels and available workshops — they start tomorrow, August 3 and run until Friday, August 5.

If you can’t make the conference, you’ll have another chance to learn from Audrey Petty this Saturday, August 6: She’s joining Tim Black, author of Bridges of Memory: Chicago’s First Wave of Great Migration for a free presentation at Chicago’s DuSable Museum of African American History this Saturday at 2 p.m. Their presentation explores Black culture through migration history and food heritage.

Audrey’s essay “Late-Night Chitlins With Momma” was first published in Saveur magazine and subsequently selected for inclusion in Best Food Writing 2006 and Cornbread Nation 4.

Audrey’s presentation Saturday is part of a series at DuSableseries from Archeworks called Garlic & Greens, and she’s invited Mike and me over to dinner tonight with her family to get some practice in. We are two very lucky people.

Where I must go

The panels I sit on at writing festivals connect me with some pretty cool authors. At the Words & Music Festival in New Orleans I appeared on a panel about memoir writing with Rick Bragg. I had the privilege of sitting on a panel called Dogs and Their People with Sonny Brewer (we’ve both had books published about our beloved dogs) at the Arkansas Literary Festival in Little Rock. The theme for the panel I sat on last Friday at the Northwestern Summer Writers Conference was Writer’s Point of View: How I Got Published, and one of my co-presenters was Angela Jackson. Her first novel, Where I Must Go, was published last year by Northwestern University Press.

 

Where I Must Go is the story of Magdalena Grace, a young black woman from an urban working-class neighborhood who attends an elite predominantly white university in the late ’60s. Angela herself entered Northwestern University in 1968 and began making notes for her book when she was still a student. She teaches African-American literature at Kennedy-King College in Chicago now, and her “How I got Published” story Friday taught our audience the value of perseverance. It took Angela forty years to finish all the rewrites of her novel while she was working to put herself through school, then teaching at various places and writing poetry and plays. “I’m not a natural storyteller,” she told them. “I am a poet. That’s different.” From a review in the New York Times:

Ms. Jackson, 58, a poet and playwright here whose collection “Dark Legs and Silk Kisses: The Beatitudes of the Spinners” won the 1994 Carl Sandburg Award for poetry, said {that with the novel} she sought to breathe life into the experiences of the first wave of black students into mostly white universities, a story that she said had not been told nearly enough.

“They transformed the nature of American universities because of their activism,” she said of the black students, “which gave us black studies, women’s studies, Asian studies. Not only did we benefit from an elite education, but universities benefited from our being there.”

I had a chance to talk with Angela for just a short bit after our panel was over. Like me, she comes from a big family — five surviving sisters and two brothers. Asked if she’d be able to stay and enjoy the rest of the day at the conference, she said she needed to get home to check on her mother. Angela is single, has never been married, and lives with her mother in the house she grew up in on Chicago’s south side.

She said she wrote her novel using pen and paper, then transferred it all to a computer. She doesn’t use Facebook or Twitter to promote her writing, and said Northwestern University Press has done an excellent job in distributing and promoting her book. And, of course, a favorable review in the New York Times never hurts! Where I Must Go will eventually be part of a trilogy that follows some of the same characters in this, Angela Jackson’s first novel. As soon as I hit the “publish” button on this post I’m going to check if this debut novel is available in audio format yet — I’m eager to read it!