The Room Support Communicator (RSC) is designed to help those who have reduced mobility to access nearby technology for the purposes of artistic creation and expression.

We are calling it the Art Interlink Bionic Paintbrush – a name that perhaps hints at how unusual this creation will be!

Keith, Ben and Phil: from Digital Writes

The Purpose Of The Art Interlink Bionic Paintbrush:

This unique project, with lasting impact and legacy,  would support young people with reduced mobility and fine motor control problems to express themselves artistically.

We would run activities in partnership with schools specialising in SEND and others, including:

  • Meeting with and getting to know the pupils and assessing their individual needs.
  • Consulting with children, their parents and carers about what mobility they do have, as well as the difficulties they face.
  • Review with pupils what different digital artistic packages there are. This will include a fully immersive VR encounter, in which pupils can be released from their physical bonds and enjoy a unique creative experience.
  • Review the above, and design and build bespoke physical computing interfacing devices for each young person, to enable them to better engage with one or more of these digital art packages. This work will involve pupils themselves if they are interested, as well as other pupils in the school with an interest in technology.
    Return to one or more of the digital art packages, in which each pupil will use their bespoke interface devices to create new art with a freedom beyond anything they will have experienced before.
  • Exhibit all the finished artworks in a physical installation space, open to the general public to view via screen and Virtual Reality headsets.
  • Create a virtual gallery available to all.

Pupils will keep their own bespoke interface devices, which would support connections to any personal computer.

In other words each unit provides a dedicated link for those people who wish to express themselves artistically through readily available technology – such as the existing PC in a room – by providing a bespoke interfacing device that is matched to their individual levels of mobility.

It will be based on a small circuit board called a Micro:Bit.

This programmable device is popular in schools throughout the UK and globally. It features the ability to interact through a range of input sensors and controls; to process those inputs according to the code that is downloaded to it and to output sounds, pictures, words and radio signals.

Micro:Bits cost from £15 each. They are available widely, including on Amazon

 

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