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TechOWL and ATAP programs

Published September 3, 2025 by openassistivetech_e02gls

There are a lot of programs for improving access to assistive tech at the state level, often supported by universities and independent living centers. TechOWL at Temple University in Pennsylvania is a great example, with tons of resources and material if you want to learn about AT options. It stands for Technology for Our Whole Lives. (We love a cute acronym here at GOAT!)
Resource centers like TechOWl exist in part in the U.S. because of support from the Assistive Tech Act of 1988.

Every U.S. state and territory has a mandate, and state funding, to give people access to learning about, trying out, and obtaining assistive tech via an Assistive Technology Act Project (ATAP).

They all do four things :

  • Lending library for assistive tech
  • Used equipment program, often run by a group of contractors or vendors.
  • Presentations and trainings, workshops
  • Consults and demos for people to problem solve and explore AT

So, TechOWL is the ATAP for the state of Pennsylvania.

A few years ago, because they had a staff member with some expertise in 3D printing, they started the CreATe Together project for 3D printing assistive tech. That has grown to become a well supported program with an online catalog of standard devices you can request (if you live in Pennsylvania), and they’ll find a partner to make it for you. They also can handle some custom requests.

It is an interesting model that I’d like to see more of in California, where we have Ability Tools as the main ATAP program, with a strong focus on reuse but not a lot of “maker” activity that I’ve found.

The level of AT you can make with a 3D printer seems a bit limited. In the TechOWL catalog we see mostly small gizmos that can help a person with grip strength or dexterity problems. This makes sense on one level because for AT that has a more critical function there could be quality control safety risks that a state funded program (with an array of loosely associated fabrication shops or volunteers with home workshops) is not prepared to handle.

On the other hand I could already use a bunch of these little plastic gizmos. A thing that punches pills out of those annoying blister packs? Hell yeah!

You can see a slightly wider array of 3D printable devices on sites like Printables or Creality – or the Internet Archive’s backup of older Thingiverse models.

It would be very interesting to go through all these sites and categorize the types of assistive tech that we can find there!

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AAC projects and policy

Published August 28, 2025 by Liz Henry

If you are interested in open source software projects for assistive tech, take a look at CBoard. It is a free/open source app for AAC (Assisted and Augemented Communication). It’s for anyone with speech and language impairments, facilitating communication with pictures and text-to-speech. You can use it to quickly construct useful communication boards, and it’s beautifully customizable. Currently, it supports 46 languages. There is a paid/subscription level to this app which makes it even more useful (and which supports the ongoing maintenance and development of the project).

a hand holding a phone or small tablet with nine colorful symbols and words used for communication

If you want to learn more about the current, complicated political, technical, and social landscape of AAC, here is a list of useful updates from Bob Williams, of the organization CommunicationFIRST:

Best Practices for Online Meetings with AAC Users

Technology for Equitable Communication: AAC Users Weigh In

New Film, 13 AAC Users: Priorities for Future Research

The FCC Needs to Address Digital Discrimination Against People Who Need AAC | CommunicationFIRST

CommunicationFIRST Petitions FCC to Add Text and Video Options for Suicide Lifeline | CommunicationFIRST

The FCC Needs to Address Digital Discrimination Against People Who Need AAC | CommunicationFIRST

2023-10-03 C1st Comments to DOJ on Title II Web Access Proposed Rule

Unjustly isolated, silenced, and deprived of literacy and freedom of expression … | CommunicationFIRST

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Open Source Accessibility Summit in October!

Published August 26, 2025 by Liz Henry

Coming up in October 2025, the Open Source Accessibility Summit! This is a one-day conference in North Carolina, for open source software contributors who are interested in building accessible tools and it is part of the (huge) All Things Open conference!

Do you have a passion for innovation? Do you believe everyone should be able to realize the benefits of technology? Please join us! Everyone is welcome to attend the summit. We need a diverse set of skills, experience, and perspectives.

Goals of the summit are to:

  • Make connections between people who have a shared interest in improving the accessibility of open source software.

    Share knowledge and current best practices for creating diverse, inclusive, and accessible open source projects.

    Define a public roadmap for improving the accessibility of open source software so the community can collaborate to realize it after the summit.

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    Building simple switches

    Published August 7, 2025 by Liz Henry

    In the material we are scanning from Alexandra Enders’ collection of DIY assistive tech information, we have come across several great sources for learning the basics of electronics in order to make switches, buzzers, and other small gadgets, very useful for people with limited dexterity to control other devices.

    I really like these short, practical guides. Rather than having to wade through a college textbook level guide to electronics, you get just the basics you need to build very cheap and easy gadgets.

    Today’s scan is simply called “Introduction to Electric Circuits”, written in 1981 by Hugh O’Neill from the Rehabilitation Engineering Center at Stanford.

    He explains what a circuit is – an unbroken path from one terminal to another of a power source, through which current can flow. A good overview of circuits in series and parallel comes next, including the tip that most simple toy adapters the AT maker will build, will be in series.

    Types of switches covered are toggle, rocker, push button, microswitch, rotary, and mercury (tilt) switches.

    It’s a very condensed electronics course in about 15 pages! If you walk through it and try the instructions, you will learn enough about how batteries, switches, circuits, and so on work that you can build many adaptive devices.

    Have a look: https://archive.org/details/introduction-electric-circuits

    a diagram showing a complete and a broken circuit

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    Adding metadata to individual device entries

    Published August 4, 2025 by Liz Henry

    The DIY information that the GOAT team has been scanning and cataloguing is in book-sized chunks right now. So, you can go to the Internet Archive to our scanned material, and search on a term — for example, “woodworking“, or “clothing” and you’ll be able to view the entire book. 

    Our goal, though, is to be able to search for individual devices. Our next project is to pull out those devices and add metadata to them. We’re testing that now on a small scale! Check out the DIY Big Index page. While there are only a few devices there for now, you may be able to see the potential! 

    We will end up with an easy way to search for every record we’ve got on how to build a standing frame, a fork extender, or a cup holder. Anyone can then comment on the designs, add photos or links to videos, and so on, to show their own builds and contribute improvements, variations, and other suggestions. 

    Those entries don’t have to be limited to information we’ve scanned. We can index and host archive copies from other sources too, and include open source software and hardware projects, like those from OpenMedTech or Open Source Wheelchairs!

    We will be hosting an event soon to invite volunteers to help us categorize and label devices. If you’re interested, please comment here or email liz@openassistivetech.org!

     

     

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    Archive scans: Punk on crutches in a clothing DIY book

    Published June 23, 2025 by Liz Henry
    ink and pen illustration of person in punk rock gear and a mohawk, with forearm crutches
    “Choosing fabric, or ready-to-wear clothes, involves establishing a list of personal priorities”

    In our recent scanning and archiving work, I really loved this illustration from a 1987 book, Fabricwise,  on issues to consider when choosing fabrics for adaptive clothing. Really, it’s a good short primer on the pros and cons of different kinds of fabrics and why you might choose them in particular situations.

    You might want to think about the tradeoff between a little bit of stretch for your pants if you are sitting in a wheelchair (good for comfort and not having baggy pants; bad for durability).

    A quote from the introduction:

    An able-bodied person may be able to tolerate clothes made from fabrics which are less than comfortable, crease badly or need a lot of care. For the person with disabilities, any one of these drawbacks, discovered too late, may mean that the clothes are hardly worn.

    Correctly chosen fabrics can help minimise some of the problems of people with disabilities; a wheelchair cushion covered in a fabric with a high pile or rough finish may contribute to sitting stability while one with a fabric surface which is smooth may make wheelchair transfers easier. Warm yet lightweight bedding can make sleep more comfortable and getting in and out of bed easier.

    It has a lot of ideas like this that seem like common sense when you think about it – but that many people have to find out for themselves. I never thought about using a rougher wheelchair cushion fabric to stop myself from sliding around, but now I want to try it!

    Sadly, the book does not magically solve the problem of jacket cuffs fraying on one’s manual wheelchair tires.

    But I appreciate the punk representation!!

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