Dream-Racer goes live ...

Do you have a box of broken or faulty switches?

Many of the schools we visit do. Frequently you'll find them in a box hidden away under a table at the back of the storeroom.

Every so often someone will decide to throw them out and then be faced with the high cost of replacing them.

Repairing them may be an alternative.

Ever since we started working in the assistive technology area we began to receive requests from users asking if we could repair their broken or faulty equipment. Usually we could help and managed each request alongside development of the various Dream-Products.

Now, as a result of positive endorsements from Blackfriars School and ACE Centre-North we have decided to positively promote our repair service to a wider audience of special needs schools, service providers and individual assistive technology users. Although we are mainly focusing on switches we will also look at keyboards and joysticks.

Send us your switches if they:

• no longer work reliably
• stick when pressed
• have damaged leads
• playback poor sound quality

For more details visit the Switch Repair Service page on the Dream-Racer website.

Mike

We are planning to add three new switch adapted fun toys to the Dream-Toys range in July.

Trudie the Turkey will sing and dance to the "chicken song". Party time will be even more fun when as she encourages everyone to sing and do the actions.

Cooky Chris and Howton are to monster toys. Cooky sings and dances to the "Ghost Busters" theme song and Howton sings the "Monster Mash".

Richard at 483mediaPro will video them for us - complete with thunder and lightning flashes and spooky themes.

I'll post links to them as soon as they are ready.

Mike

Last Friday I had the opportunity to participate in a Network Day hosted by AbilityNet. The event was organised to celebrate the success of the Switch on Communities project and to share ideas and successes across the Community Partners.

Since the project started it has helped over 39,000 individuals with disabilities and special needs use adapted technology equipment to access a PC for work and pleasure, read and communicate with relatives and friends.

My contribution on the day involved showing some of our new developments including the wireless switches and Domino infra-red controllers as well as the switch adapted toys and Dream-Racer.

By way of a demo I set up a "disco" controlled by our new scanning-switch to control lasers, a mirror ball and music played through the laptop.

Unfortunately, no one felt like rushing to the dance floor .... too early in the day I think.

Mike

For the last few months we have been working on a series of new switch products for use within the assistive technology community.

The technology development for wireless, infra-red and scanning switch designs is complete and is now being built into a series of new products.

The first to be produced will be a four switch wireless converter unit. One of the boxes houses the transmitter and the other the receiver.

In use up to four standard "wired" switches can be connected to the transmitter box and up to four toys, such as our adapted Dream-Toys, or other devices plugged into the receiver.

These switches have a working range of around 20 metres which makes them suitable for home, school or outdoor use.

Availability: August 2009.

Mike

Go to any special needs school and you'll find BIGmack switches, like this, in most classrooms.

BIGmacks let the user record 20 seconds worth of speech or sounds (more for the newer models) that is played back when the switch is pressed. They can be connected to external speakers, toys and other applications and can also be operated by a second switch connected through one of the onboard sockets.

This one had been well used by the students at Blackfriars School, Newcastle-under-Lyme and was beginning to show its age. It still worked as a switch, it was loud enough but the recorded message sounded muffled and was difficult to hear clearly.

Altogether we collected six that sounded rough and in need of attention.

Essentially it came down to this: could they be refurbished to avoid the cost of replacements?

As it turned out all they needed was a replacement speaker fitting at the cost of £3 and they are now back in use - hopefully good for several more years hard labour.

Get in touch if you would like us to take a look at your school's BIGmacks - we may be able to refurbish yours as well. This is the link to our contact details on the Dream-Racer web site.

Mike