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Grade 11 and 12 Robotics students from Belle River District High School participated in an exciting partnership with John McGivney Children’s Centre this holiday season.
On November 23rd the students were given a variety of brand-new electronic toys to choose from and shown how the toys can be reconfigured to make them more accessible for children with exceptionalities. Their teacher, Heather St. Pierre, along with Spec Ed Coordinator Lana Brodes and John McGivney’s Education Coordinator Kelsey Smith, led the students in a lesson on how to add “switches” to the toys, changing their functionality and making electronic elements such as sounds or movements easier to activate.
Many of the students were integrating an audio jack directly into the toy and adding a much larger, easier-to-press button externally. Their capabilities and ingenuity were extremely impressive to witness. Kelsey noted, “They are rather simple adaptations, but the difficulty is finding the location where the element can be added and ensuring that it will work. When you pull apart different toys, they all have different mechanisms on the inside so it can take a while to find what will trigger the toy to do the function you want such as walking, moving wings or even the eyes. The kids did a great job at it and the toys, triggers and circuit boards are all very different.”
In addition to the toys that the students updated, families from the John McGivney School Authority and Greater Essex County District School Board were invited to an event called “Hack the Holidays” on December 9th. Parents were led by the JMSA and GECDSB on the creation of accessibility switches that could be applied to toys for their children.
Thirty parents/grandparents/guardians were guided through the “how to’s” of building a switch by Kelsey Smith. Participants were supported in safe wire cutting, stripping and soldering from Lana Brode and Bill Fetter (Technology Consultant with GECDSB). Upon completion of their switch, parents selected a free pre-adapted toy from the students at Belle River District High School. Complimentary gift wrapping was completed by Jennifer Newton, Educational Consultant with GECDSB.
This exciting partnership was made possible by the Neil Squire Society, Makers Making Change and the Optimist Club of Kingsville.
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