Device Helps Children with Disabilities Access Tablets
From: Medical Design Briefs - 01/09/2013

Digital devices can provide games, e-books, and learning apps to everyone who
can operate them. But what if you can't work even the easiest of controls?
Engineers at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, are working with
children who have limited mobility that makes it difficult for them to
perform the pinch and swipe gestures required to control touch-screen devices
like tablets and smartphones.  

They have created Access4Kids, a wireless input device that uses a sensor
system to translate physical movements into the fine-motor skills needed to
control a tablet. The prototype of the device includes three force-sensitive
resistors that measure pressure and convert it into a signal that instructs
the tablet. A child can wear the device around his or her forearm or place it
on the arm of a wheelchair and hit the sensors or swipe across the sensors
with a fist. The combination of sensor hits or swipes gets converted to
different "touch-based" commands on the tablet.  

Read the entire story and view a video (1:07) at:
http://www.medicaldesignbriefs.com/component/content/article/15440

Photo caption: The current prototype of the Access4Kids device includes three
force-sensitive resistors that measure pressure and convert it into a signal
that instructs the tablet. They are creating a second prototype with wireless
sensors that can be placed anywhere a child is capable of hitting them.