Last year at this time I met Andrei, and GOAT started our collaboration to get him mobile again. Here’s his story: An extraordinary collaboration that changed my life.
Andrei is now working for GOAT to do our IT work, and he has developed this fabulous and creative learning tool, Wheels and Bones. It’s a browser-based game that teaches basic wheelchair maintenance and repair! Wheels and Bones takes place in a fantasy setting, with a ghost and a zombie fixing chairs for their clients. You listen to the client’s report of the problem, inspect the chair’s parts to find out more information, then pick the right tools to fix it, step by step. After you fix several chairs, you unlock the advanced repair cases and the seating clinic.
I love the seating clinic part of the game! You see a side view of the client, and their report of pain or other problems, then you also see their clinician’s specifications for proper measurements. With that info, you use slider controls or push buttons to change dimensions of seat, footrests, and back height, and you also may do things like pump up tires and cushions. As you tweak these dimensions, you see the skeleton view of your client get into a better position.
It is so useful for any wheelchair user to understand the dynamics of their own posture and the chair they use!
And I learned good information from the repair games too! I especially liked how after you finish fixing the chair, and your client zooms happily across the workshop, the real life lessons learned are summed up for you on the screen.
Please try out Wheels and Bones! We’d love any feedback about the game play or how you understand the teaching sequences! This the beta launch, so any feedback you give now can make it into our next version.
Thank you Andrei for this delightful training tool – and very playable game!
