rc3 preroll music
Herald: Welcome back to our studio in Halle. And today, the the next
presentation will be about the Careables a moving exhibition. The speaker Saad
Chinoy, is managing his local makerspace called Salvage Garden in Singapore. He
considers himself a geek and maker, and we'll talk about the moving exhibition
today.
Saad: Thanks again, and sorry about all of this. It's become the necessary dance that
we have to do with all the remote connections and multiple streams and so
on. But thank you again for the intro and I'm really happy to be with you guys in
spite of all of the distances and not really happening in the physical space,
which is kind of what I'd like to talk about with you a little bit. And before I
get into it, let me do a little bit of an intro. My name is Saad and I'm based in
Singapore. Normally, I'd set up a little maker spaces and I'm all about trying to
apply tech for good. And I have volunteered with Engineering Good, which
is a nonprofit charity based in Singapore, and we work with persons with
disabilities. I'm here today to try and talk to you and to share with you a little
bit about what we've been doing in combination with partners from around the
world through a program called Careables. And if you've read the little description
of the talk, you'll probably be wondering why all of the people mentioned there
aren't here. And it's kind of what this is all about. They weren't able to join me in
conversation for various COVID related, safe distancing travel related issues.
Ricardo is in-between places. Geraldine is also in between places. And so as far as
you are, and I'm actually quite fortunate to be able to jump in and share with you
what we have. So I'm going to keep it nice and informal and brief. But for my co-
presenters, I hope that continued health and that they have safe travels and I hope
to see them again soon. All right. So if I'm able to if you're able to see my
screen, I'd like to show you around a little virtual space that we've created. I
mean, careables.org is the project and you'll find more about careables on the
website and so on. But because of the restrictions that we're all under around
the world, having a physical interaction is like CCC to be next to impossible right
now, and it makes perfect sense. And we need to put health and safety first. So
the virtual exhibition that I'm about to show you is created in a two dimensional
world on a platform called Cabbagetown, which is not unlike the 2D world that RC3
also has. It's actually inspired by last year CCC, if you see and the sort of
interactions that we saw while people were able to sort of run into each other and
have a spontaneous conversation just by the fact that they were in back for the
virtual space and a moment in time. So the idea of having that virtual space seems a
little bit strange because, you know, it's all on the screen. So why bother? But I
think the more you try this out, the more you move around in this, in this two
dimensional environment, you realize that even though there's a slight difference
between having a little character running around. It really makes a huge impact. So
that's kind of what we were inspired by. And we create a little two dimensional
space here, and we call this the Terrible's International Park. And it has
various instances or little jump off points for different cables, moving
exhibitions. And I'll show you one of them, in particular the one that I've been
facilitating in Singapore last year. And you'll see that in a second. But if you're
going to show you a little video to sort of situate you as to where what these
careables are moving and conditions that are a bit like. And the video might be a
little bit choppy because of their screen share, but that's OK. There is no text,
really. There's just a bit of music. video plays So that's what the sort of
intro video and you see this ad right in the middle of this crossroads. So when you
join the virtual space later on, I'll share with you the link. You'll be able to
sort of orient itself by looking at the video, and I'm hoping that what you what
you saw in that video, a little snippet of the various exhibitions that have taken
place around the world. I was the one sort of facilitating curating the exhibition in
Singapore and gave us an opportunity to take this EU Horizon 2020 funded project,
which is careables and invite other local partners within Singapore to come forward
with similar ideas. And just to give you a little briefing there. It's about
assistive technology, so things that are either 3D printable or modified or custom
made that cater to persons with disabilities or try to address a need that
has to do with persons with disabilities. So those are the sorts of examples of
objects, physical or otherwise that we put together at these exhibitions. So let's
take a quick look at Singapore. All you have to do is sort of walk around to this
portal, and once you get there, you got a little instruction that says, you know,
the key to continue and it will transport you to another virtual space, which is
also built on the town. So I'm going to switch off this little video here and we
can just use the moving around virtual space, so all of these spaces were created
by volunteers and super enthusiastic interns, so they are a work in progress.
But you can get a sense of what they're all about. So here we are at in little
tiny little shop house. If you're familiar with Singapore, you'll know what shop
houses are. It's basically a shop in the downstairs area and a house upstairs
traditionally. This has been converted into an office, and it's a rather narrow.
So the 2D space is created sort of to resemble what it would feel like if you
were in the physical space in and around Singapore. So I'm just going to walk you
through the space and show you all of the things that we have on display here. The
exhibition was late last year, and with some really nice fun people, some of these
are local partners. And so that's the little poster at the entrance. This is our
little lobby area. It's a courtyard and it's open to the air. But we sit outside
and talk about things and smoke cigarets and things like that. Want to get in? It's
a tiny little space where you'll see a whole bunch of laptops arranged along the
side, and there's a lot more in actual in the actual space. And to tell you a little
more about why we've got so many laptops, here's a little intro video to give you an
overview of what engineering is and why we do what we do. So I hope this comes across
OK? If not, you know, there will be help outpaced the link in the chat or something
similar. Video is played When we started the CAC
Initiative Competition Against Corporate Initiative, we actually initially thought
we would just refurbish 24 laptops and pass it on to the beneficiaries and then,
you know, watch Netflix and play PlayStation for another two months. So
far, we've been able to give out five and a half thousand laptops. We work with more
than 200 social service organizations or charities. And true then we've given out
all of these five and a half thousand laptops.
Joanne: I am Joanne. I am the director for engineering good. We are a Singaporean
charity who started out in 2014 working with persons with disabilities to enable
their inclusivity in daily life. We grew in 2020 where as a cause of the pandemic,
we started a new initiative to refurbish and donate laptops to people who need
them. And now we are working on new initiatives that have come my way because
of our work in assistive technology and our work in digital inclusion. So, for
example, our next big initiative is troubleshooting community framework, where
we will train volunteers to help troubleshoot the laptops, the digital
devices of people in need. Together with our group and digital inclusion, we also
have grown our initial work, which was working with persons with disabilities.
Our tech for good, for example, grew from 80 participants to 150 participants this
year. We've grown from only working with the six special schools to the 200
charities in Singapore that work for and with persons with disabilities. So because
of the impact that we continue to make and the impact that we are requested to make
by our various social service organizations, we have an internal
conscience that makes us want to do more and help more. And because of that
engineering good. It is growing in leaps and bounds. We got our first office in
India in September 2020 and being a small team of three four people. We thought this
was all all. We need it right and a nice little schoolhouse next to the mighty so
that the volunteers can come in. However, because of the growth in the initiatives
that we want to do, we are hiring more and more people. We now stand it full timers
and we are hiring another five more. That together with the rolling bunch of interns
and the part timers and all the volunteers that we have, it's making this space a bit
congested too. We actually are moving to a bigger space and industrial estate where
we have about 2700 square feet and we can then run small workshops and more programs
and also trained digital inclusion efforts that we will be doing. We would like to
ask for your support in providing us with more devices to refurbish, to pass on to
the people who need them. We ask for your support to come in and help volunteer as
engineering, but we do not only need engineering volunteers, we need volunteers
of all types, we need people to work comes comms, meaning people to help us with our
website design our accounting just like any other organization. So please, if you
have the time and want to give more of yourself, come and join engineering good.
So we hope you can support engineering good by donating to our cause and helping
us grow so we can help more and more people.
Saad: OK, so it's a bit of a background of the organization, but I have been
volunteering with, as you heard from Joanne is our executive director and he
put in a lot of his heart into the work that we do, and it's all about reaching
out to those who are in need. And in the last two years during the pandemic, we
found ourselves responding to the call for addressing the digital divide through
refurbishing laptops. Although that is not exactly what engineering good use to do,
it is all about assistive tech. And so now that we've handled that campaign, it's
because of the volunteers and the sort of devices that we've had. We were able to
continue this campaign way beyond we initially thought we're coming on to now.
I think close to 6000 laptops in the last two years that have gone to families that
don't have access or are unable to work from home and study from home at the same
time. So in sort of combination with this, laptop computers against COVID, as we like
to call it, campaign, we've also now being able to re energize our assistive tech
work. And those are the exhibits that we have on display here as part of the
cababilies exhibition. So we do have a few more videos, but I'm not going to bore you
with those. I think as you explored the space by yourself, you'll be able to view
those without any lag and delay. So let me just walk you through the upstairs area.
So here we've come up to the top floor of the space, and at the back you'll see
there's a little corner that's been designated the salvage garden, and it's a
sort of reference to Savage Garden. We do have sort of a vague. I mean, there's a
broad range of volunteers that would that that spend time with engineering good. But
with the reference to Savage Garden, I think you understand what demographic
we're working with, and that's kind of how the the the name came about. But the idea
was that we would salvage as many of these devices that were not working into working
devices and then send them out to the families that need them most. And this is
work that. So this is the corner that is a little makerspace. And you know, like most
maker spaces, it tends to be appropriately messy. You could probably also see in the
in the corner there we have our supervisor stick stuck to the window. She's our most
furry volunteer, and she just wandered in while we were refurbishing laptops and she
wasn't being cared for because everybody was on lockdown and she didn't have the
usual source of food, which was leftovers from cafes and restaurants. Wandered in
from the street. And she's been with us ever since, sort of keeping an eye on
things when nobody is there. Gordon is a space with a cat. She does also keep an
eye on activities, and I'd like to show you that, but before I show you some of
the current projects, let's have a look at what's on display here for each of these
tables has sort of like a representation of what was displayed in the actual
physical exhibition. So if you walk up to it and hit X, you'll be able to see a
photograph or a video or a series of photographs and videos that show you the
object of this event as a good example of one of the careables. It was designed by
an Italian consortium member, and they went on to have a successful Kickstarter
program around commercialization of this idea. But the open source files and the
models do exist, so you're able to just download and 3D print and edge a
noncommercial version of this to try out for yourself. And of course, you know,
being 3D printable, it allows for customization and personalization. And
this particular object is designed for children with fine motor control
difficulties that are instead of being able to hold a pencil with their index
finger in their thumb. You have sort of a wearable ring that goes on to multiple
fingers, and they're able to hold their pens and pencils and draw on on paper. If
you look at the little poster at the end, I think that'll give us a little bit more
of a detailed view of what this is all about. And, you know, just like an
exhibition, you have links to where it's available and how you can get involved if
you choose to do so. So that, Cliffo, so let's have a look at the next stage, this
particular one is a personal favorite of mine. I mean, this is engineering goods
careables if you like, and it is in doing. Ever since we started as. When I make
these assistive switches, which are 3D printable and are incredibly easy to
lightweight and easy to adapt to specific circumstances. So if you have a mobility
issue, say you are wheelchair bound and you have to install switches or access
control mechanisms around your wheelchair. Then having it be as lightweight and
modular as possible is a good idea. So these switches really help, and we've been
using them in various ways. In particular, we've been plugging them into toys. And as
part of our hackertoy workshop, where we teach caregivers and cognitive behavioral
therapists how to make the switches themselves. So the idea behind what
engineering good does is not just create the devices, but to engage the primary
caregivers as well as the end users as much as humanly possible, and share the
skills behind making the idea of thinking out of the box and looking at what your
specific needs are and repurposing things that you have around you in order to
create something new. This is another example of a very interesting invention.
This was contributed by S.G. Enable, which is a local Singapore based organization
that has a physical library for assistive tech from commercial examples, engineering
good tends to focus on sort of like a low cost alternative to what's available in
the marketplace. But if you are in Singapore and you want to have access to
assistive tech devices just to get a feel for what they look like, S.G. and A they
will make you try these things out. So they contributed this, which is a very
interesting little jacket, and it looks like a hoodie like any other. But if you
look closely, the pockets in the lining of this jacket actually have little air
pockets inside and they can inflate and sort of give you a feeling of a hug. And
it's used for kids who are have NZD disorders, and it's found to be quite
useful and helpful in situations like that. And of course, there are other
scenarios where this could be useful as well. That's the T-jacket. Let's look at
what else we have here. This is a good little 3-D printable that was again a
collaboration between two maker spaces. And it offers up for attachment that is
incredibly lightweight because a 3D printable and incredibly modular because
you can attach different little pieces to it. And as the arm grows or as the user's
needs change, it's easier to make something that is 3D printable on the
spot, and it's easier to modify it so that it doesn't rub against the skin, or it's
know a little bit bigger on one side or a little bit more bent this way. So we find
that the possibilities around these kinds of objects are far more conducive towards
the user rather than what's available in the marketplace, and they tend to be
heavier and mass and incredibly expensive. So we feel that salvage garden, that we
don't just play the role of making these things in 3-D printing. We have the
responsibility to also make the modifications and the changes necessary in
order to facilitate its use. I mean, it's all very well to have as much, you know,
brilliant AI enabled fancy tech in the world. But if it's not going to be usable,
then what's the point of the fancy tech? So we want to try and bring to you
printable objects and 3-D printing closer to the end users as much as possible. And
we're not alone in this. There are other spaces that are doing it. And I think
Campbell's is a good example of who those people are. One last little exhibit that
I'd like to point out here is something that is available in the marketplace, but
incredibly useful. It's called the roll around. And it is the commercial product,
it is not particularly cheap, but it is incredibly useful in making spaces
accessible. It rolls up into a sort of like a yoga mat kind of format. And since
it's metal, it is quite heavy. But once it rolls out, you can bridge over the little
tiny little steps like this and allow access for wheelchairs and so on. And
let's just have a quick look at the poster on the wall. Books are on the wall is not
OK. It seems to be connected to Syria. The whole can still coming through. I'm going
to quickly reload this. But in the meanwhile, at the end of my little talk
here, I'll share the link to the main space and to a like a little QR code as
well with the tiny URL that will point you to the virtual space, and I highly
encourage you to come and visit and explore on your own time. It looks like
we're OK here. All right. One last thing I want to show you at Makerspace is what I'm
currently working on and. You'll notice on this table we've got a bunch of pie. And
that was the closest analog I could find in this virtual 2D space for the Raspberry
Pi, which is the sort of programable pocket sized credit card size computer
that I feel has tremendous potential. And the little slice of pie on the table. And
I'd like to show you that as an example here. Hopefully, this will work. Yeah.
Here we go. And let's get rid of these here. It's very quick. It's a little, a
few slides, and I'm sure you've had a lot of you are familiar with this wearable
device, which is the Google Glass, and it's quite pricey. It didn't make it into
the mass market, but it still is around and is being used in enterprise
environments and is quite expensive. But that was an interesting article, which the
link to a use case where children with disabilities or in this case autism could
use this device as a variable in order to assist with the activities of daily
living. And it's still being explored. There are sort of very small little use
case and trials where this is being tried out, but I personally, I feel this is an
excellent use case for something that didn't quite make it into the mass market.
However, the technology behind it is inaccessible financially, because for 999
US dollars, it might be OK for an enterprise to use it, but for an
individual that is still quite hard to reach. And there's little caption at the
bottom red state surprisingly simple. But if you take apart one of these devices,
you very quickly realize that it's far from simple and there's a phenomenal
amount of tech that an engineering that goes into making a device like this
possible. Just the idea of having the screen in front of your eyes so close kind
of defies the laws of physics. And to be able to overlay a little bit of text or a
little bit of information wire will to see through it. The key thing, but it took a
whack at it and in our low cost sort of DIY maker kind of way, we said, Look,
let's find a low cost alternative to this and see if we can make it work. And what
we have here is a device that basically auto translates. It has a little
microphone that picks up what is being said, and I'm sure everybody is familiar
with this by now on YouTube or other video things. You can have little auto generated
captions that text that speech to text technology and having that be visible to a
person who has difficulty with hearing is a good idea, and it assists with
scenarios, where otherwise you would be required to lip read. And now everybody's
wearing masks. And if you have more than one person in the room, it's a bit tricky
to be able to manage it all. So the use case, that we were looking at is a low
cost alternative to something like the Google Glass, something that can be worn,
but it's also lightweight and incredibly affordable. So we did manage to put
something like that together. And again, you know, in true maker Open-Source
fashion, all of our volunteers very happily made everything open and
parametric. So this these are preliminary designs. It's a work very much still in
progress. But the intention here is again to keep it as open and accessible and
modular as possible. So where we are now is we have successfully made a functional
prototype of just this idea, and you can see the screen kind of sticks out very
noticeably, but it does deliver the end functionality that is required, so it's
not meant to be worn all the time. But, you know, like a fancy pair of glasses,
you put it on for special occasions and you know where it can figure out. So we've
made five of these in as many different colors as two different hooks handle, and
we have five hearing aid users who signed up to trial this out and give us feedback
on what works, what doesn't work, what needs to be removed, or whether or not
it's a stupid idea and things like that, but the initial feedback has been quite
positive. I think that it opens up a world of possibilities here for involving users
of these devices in its shape and capabilities. So here's where we are now.
We have this trial. It is ongoing early mid chan. We should have the outcome of
the user feedback and then we should be able to take it to the next level. But so
far, we've managed to keep it comfortably within 99 dollars. And again, I want to
reiterate that affordability is one thing, and it's only possible because of
volunteers not charging for that time. So the equipment itself is incredibly low
cost. But if you have a pool of volunteers and give them access to space technology,
tools and equipment and use it, I think the product that comes out of it, it makes
good sense on multiple levels. So this is the Ihea prototype, that's a little bit
about me, my background. You can explore the space and look at the thing at your
own time. But should you need to contact me? That's my email address. So with that,
I'm done with this space and I've given you a little walk around of our little
Singapore exhibition. And before I sort of end, I'd like to point out the other
things that we have here, a couple of videos to give you a sense of what spaces
like. There is, here we go. This is our little website. And we think about the
space and about what we've been doing as part of the exhibition, will find on a
little blog post. On this level. So I'm hoping that the physical space is a little
bit more engaging than just reading another blog post, but you know, it helps
to have it in this format as well. All right. So that pretty much is this
particular space. I'm going to walk you out of Singapore and back to the
international park, so to speak. And on the way, we'll pass by all these hundreds
and thousands of markups. And go back to the portal that takes us to the main
space. They're not working anymore. So there we go. I'm really hoping that we
won't have to do these online things forever. I think it's they're moving
forwards. It's a good idea to have a hybrid situation. And now that we're all
sort of forced to get comfortable and used to doing remote sessions, hoping that next
year we're able to do a more physical CCC again. I really do miss that a lot. All
right. So here we are. You had a look at Singapore. You sort of have a little
ComingSoon with placeholders for the other moving exhibitions that were done around
the world in the last year or so. And that was mentioned in the central video. Before
I end, I would like to just play this video here, which I think captures the
essence of what all of these spaces and what engineering good inside Savage Garden
has been trying to do. This one is the open health academy from Be Able. *video
plays* But she is focusing on that all the interiors of mantle and mentioned focus on
come on. Oh man, they're part of the weekend and clan teams have smitten on
life hacks. She does live in Brooklyn for her mom on the idea that some folks in
the. Sons of much respected fund owned much by seven plus smart ones were loose
on midday AEDT. Holly, to me, all the Hollywood sign and then a central tenet
who responded to the English novel. Open source your. I think in this order,
because I admit you're not ICC cricket. Adina Chung, fullback make it Mervin
fluent in Spanish. Magdalena Tomasetti is a highly on India's next Adnan Fab Labs.
He did so early, Tedward SplatS, who also is innovative on workshops and and when I
did this, put as much potassium and products and pick in deposition this
opportunity and with my project for the initial release and sold us Kansai Anklets
on. Just kind of it in traditional bladders and thicker than advancement.
Couldn't it be open, have I got any test ratings of also having lousy take blame
the industry? It's would be. That's all being put up and break down. The question
that you gave me about being accessible to him, given that he keeps asking you. But.
So with that, I'd like to thank you for your time. And if there are any questions,
I to take them now, but otherwise I hope everybody is staying safe, be healthy.
Gekko? Herald Gekko: Yes. There are question, so.
audio problems by the question. Saad: Yeah, I mean, it's a very good
question, and yes, that has been the biggest challenge with trying to make
something new, something innovative, something that goes beyond what's already
available. It requires hands on interaction and with most maker spaces.
This continues, to... It wasn't exactly easy to do this even before we went into a
pandemic situation, inviting people into a space. We had different barriers to entry.
People were shy, people were not familiar, they were not comfortable, they were
scared of the noisy machines. And that still is the case. And not to add to that.
We have, you know, masks and vaccinations and all of these sorts of things, but
we're still not out of the pandemic yet. So we are finding ways to. You know,
collaborate while making the hands on element on our own. The idea of 3-D
printing in the 3-D printable things is no longer just trapped within a maker space.
People have these things at home. One of the most sort of heartening things I
noticed. In the early days before the before the vaccines were an option, there
was this global shortage of PPE, and a lot of makers stepped forward and said, Look,
I understand how to use a 3-D printer, and I don't normally think about this. But
what? He is needed and was being polite until shows intentionally or otherwise it
was there and it and it has happened and it has happened. *problems with the
quality". So I feel like we have this opportunity to translate some of that
potential and bring it forward with us. We are heading to an area where hopefully
this pandemic situation will be less stressful and allow for more interaction.
But if we bring the lessons that we've learned while we've been in lockdown, so
to speak, I think the amount of potential that we can realize is going to be
phenomenal.
Herald: That's that's very inspiring. Thank you. And then another question. Do you have any success stories of achieving
your goal of inspiring the DIY and the
maker culture? And then so that someone else could develop or even just fabricate
your prototype and then put it to use? Yeah, Careables.ee is the is the website,
and I think you'll find several examples, not necessarily ones that have made. I
mean, the engineering good examples that I showed you with the switches there are on
careables as well, but we found I found several examples of other people's
projects that were relevant to the Singapore context and bringing those into
that physical space where these people interact with makers and other people
allowed us to have that conversation. So you just hand somebody a thing and they
say, Look, I understand what you're talking about now. Can you make this for
me, but bigger or smaller or, you know, hot chips or with the different texture,
and we're now able to do that. But there are examples on careables that have
inspired that kind of conversation. So not necessarily an actual object, but
definitely that interaction is facilitated by looking at other people's good ideas
for assistive tech. The one that I talked about with the little whearables. Reaper
ads in Iowa City. And that's what we're working on at the moment. And it will be
made available for any. Anybody to download, try it out for themselves. I
will just throw on screen. Our little website where all these projects are
listed, and I'll point out this is the one. So we're calling it an open source,
head mounted display. And you can find out more about it over here. I hope that
answered the question. Herald: Oh, very exciting. Uh, that's a really good cause.
Thank you so much for talking about your project and your foundation. Of course.
Saad, thank you. Saad: Thank you.
Herald: All right. All right. Thank you for the time and attention, and we'll be
back with the next report in a bit.
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