TapeBocks are making toolkit for people living with intellectual
disabilities. I'm Kirsten Ellis and my co authors with Emily
Dao, Osian Smith, Stephen Lindsay and Patrick Olivier. We
want to encourage curiosity and exploration for everyone,
especially for people with intellectual disabilities. The
Maker Movement has an established agenda for
simplifying and expanding traditional methods and
audiences for electronics knowledge and the making
process. They're making kits that have been researched, but
accessibility continues to be an issue. TapeBlocks are a low
cost, low fidelity toolkit, intended to be accessible for
people with an intellectual disability, while promoting
creativity and engagement. TapeBlocks are 3.5 centimeter by
7 centimeter EVA foam blocks wrapped with conductive tape. To
make a power block conductive tape is wrapped around the block
and a battery carrier is inserted on top of the tape. To
make a light block the LED is placed in the block and the tape
is wrapped over the component and the block. Using this method
it is possible to make LED blocks, vibration blocks, fan
blocks and buzzer blocks. Our paper documents the evaluation
of TapeBlocks using a two phase mixed method approach. We wanted
to understand the role of TapeBlocks in engaging people
living with intellectual disabilities in making
activities. The first phase focused on understanding makers
and special education professionals perspectives on
TapeBlocks and how they can be integrated into their practice.
In the second phase, we conducted four remote maker
workshops with young adults living with intellectual
disabilities, they were between the ages of 19 and 29. These
workshops were led by the teachers and support coaches who
took part in phase one. Each workshop was two hours. Workshop
One was an exploration of pre made TapeBlocks including a
light block, vibration block, a motor block, a buzzer block and
a fan block. The instructions were play around, participants
were able to work out how the TapeBlocks work for themselves.
But it did take some time. Workshop Two actually moved on
to making tape blocks. All of the participants made a power
block and an LED block. It proved fiddly bit challenging.
They quite enjoyed the experience. Workshop Three was
making a sensor of block. This was definitely the most
challenging of the workshops, the orientation of components
proved quite difficult. Workshop four was making a character with
an integrated circuit. The participants were working at
different speeds, which made it a bit difficult online, as some
are much faster than others. But all participants did manage to
make a unique character. In the end. We found that TapeBlocks
had a really low threshold for engagement. Everything was
visible, nothing is hidden, which makes it possible for
people to build understanding by doing TapeBblocks with
Tinkerable. They're colorful, they're soft, robust blocks that
afford stacking and using for creation. TapeBlocks lead to
meaningful making, and they had social benefit. They encouraged
languages, and there was a real focus on praising and overcoming
obstacles rather than outcomes of the sessions, which was
really powerful. Due to COVID-19, we had to change the
maker workshops to an online delivery format. We found that
we could not offer as much support remotely compared to
traditional in person workshops, as we could not physically help
participants complete an activity. Our help was limited
to words in webcam demonstrations. This led to a
much slower working pace. However, participants were able
to work more independently and therefore Express greater
satisfaction in doing so. We found that the characteristics
of TapeBlocks make them a suitable toolkit for introducing
electronics to people who have an intellectual disability.