About this project
Children with physical or cognitive disorders such as Cerebral Palsy often have no strength in their arms or legs. In order to move around, they need to use electric wheelchairs. Unfortunately, before they can legally operate these wheelchairs, they have to be insured, and before insurance companies will agree to financially protect the user of an electric wheelchair they want proof that the user has been trained.
Training with a real wheelchair is a time consuming, potentially unsafe process. Physical therapists have to follow wheelchair users around, and make sure that they can complete basic tasks without crashing, getting stuck in or under tight surfaces, getting pinched by the equipment, or falling over. Our project, therefore, is to create a virtual training program that allows people to practice using a powered wheelchair in a game-like environment, before they move on to the real thing.
Earlier Clarkson honors students built a working 3D virtual house, and they coupled it with a hydraulic platform and virtual reality goggles. Users would take their regular wheelchairs onto the platform, strap themselves in, wear the goggles, and then they would be able to use a standard video game joystick to navigate their wheelchair through the house. They'd see the house around them through the goggles, and they would feel bumps and inclines because of the moving platform.
This past semester, undergraduate senior Cassie Dearborn decided to create an immersive 3D school environment to compliment the house. She built the house in 3D Studio Max, a 3D rendering program. Our project this summer is to import Cassie's 3DSMax school into Virtools, which allows us to physicalize and add scripts to our school. Eventually, we'll be able to add the platform and the goggles to this new environment.
