The big keys are heavy and can be difficult to turn. A much better system would be some sort of almost ‘contactless’ electronic key fob. Or maybe a card like the oyster card. It is an oportunity to improve the current system and it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

Inspired by poor compliance with eye drops across a wide range of eye conditions, Droplet is an aid for users of eye drops, allowing for a frustration-free medication regime. The design aims to give eye drop users confidence and independance with their medication.

The best way to see the project is to click through to the project page here:

www.alistairuff.com/droplet

So far I’ve been 3D printing prototypes and customising with sugru etc for testing.

The 3D model is available on shapeways should any of you be interested

3D file here

I haven’t made it available to purchase as shapeways stipulates that models should primarily decorative and I do not want to risk falling foul of any medical regs should a problem occur with a purchased model etc.

Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated. I will be taking the product to New Designers in London on the first week of July this year, so feel free to come along and see it for yourself.

As well as being a happy time to celebrate all that we’ve achieved over the past five years, it’s also been a time for us to reflect on what lead to Enabled by Design becoming a reality in the first place.

Since winning the first ever Social Innovation Camp in 2008, Enabled by Design has been working hard to build a community of people passionate about design for all (but ultimately good design) and independent living. We certainly hope that this is something we’ve been able to achieve, but of course we still have lots more to do!

Social Innovation Camp April 2008 - the original line-up (Denise Stephens, Dominic Campbell, Carrie Bishop, Matt Collins, Ed Crompton & Helga Viegas) & where it all began!

So what have we been up to over the past five years, I hear you ask? Well, here goes:

April 2008 – Winner of first ever Social Innovation Camp

June 2008 - First prize: b.TWEEN 08, Enterprising Ideas Category

July 2008 - Nominee: UK Catalyst Awards

September 2008 - Level 1 award winner: UnLtd (Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs) & Scripting Enabled speaker (web accessibility conference)

November 2008 - Independent living stream award winner: Innovation Exchange Next Practice Programme

April 2009 - Nominee highly commended: MS Society Awards Best MS Information Resource

November 2009 - Real choice and real control through design speaker (event run by ATcare) & MyPublicServices speaker (conference run by Patient Opinion)

March 2010 - Occupational Therapy. Are we ready to put people first? speaker (conference run by Research in Practice for Adults)

May 2010 - Level 2 award winner: UnLtd Better Net award

June 2010 - We are Enabled by Design (unconference run by Enabled by Design) – Design Museum, London

September 2010 - a11yLDN speaker (web accessibility unconference)

December 2010 - Shropshire Disability Network General Meeting speaker & Designing for the Future competition judge – Collyer’s sixth form college, Horsham

February 2011 - Assistive Technology and Design speaker (run by the College of Occupational Therapy)

April 2011 - Naidex National Style Awards judge – NEC Birmingham, Ergonomics and Human Factors 2011 speaker (annual conference run by Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors) & The Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design Open Day speaker

June 2011 - Gransnet “people’s choice” prize: Interactivism Spotted mobile phone app & Design Zone at The Mobility Roadshow 2011 (curated and run by Enabled by Design and Such + Such Design)

July 2011 - Additive Manufacturing : The Future (sandpit event) speaker

September 2011 – RSA Student Design Awards Tutor Briefing Day speaker

December 2011 - IRISS (Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services) Forum 2011: Designs for the Future speaker & RSA Student Design Awards – Mine for Life brief (set and judged by Enabled by Design and Loughborough University) (2011/2012)

June 2012 - Design Zone at The Mobility Roadshow 2012 (curated and run by Enabled by Design and Such + Such Design)

October 2012 - Bathroom Manufacturer’s Association Conference 2012 speaker

November 2012 – Enabled by Design-athon (hack event run by Enabled by Design) – Ravensbourne

December 2012 – Design Council: Ageing Better by Design speaker & Glasgow School of Art (presentation and set design brief for 2nd year product design students)

April 2013 – 3D Printing for People with Disabilities session at SXSW – Austin, Texas

It’s been an exciting five years and we’ve been lucky enough to meet some fantastic people along the way, and that includes each and every one of our community, so thank you for sticking with us, it really does mean a lot to us!

So what’s next for Enabled by Design? That would be telling, but we do have some exciting plans in the pipeline which we’ll be sharing with you in the coming months, so watch this space. In the meantime though, we’d love to hear all about your favourite Enabled by Design memories and what you think of Enabled by Design; including what you like, what you don’t like so much and how you think we can improve on what we’ve been doing so far, so please do drop us a line!

Right, who’s for some birthday cake?!? : )

Team EbD

I was lucky enough to meet designer Duncan Fitzsimons a number of years ago through the Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. Up to that point, Duncan had been developing his folding wheel for bikes and was starting to explore whether the folding wheel would be useful for wheelchair use. I was really excited to hear about this, as I could see that a folding wheelchair wheel could have huge potential. A folding wheel would make folding away a wheelchair for transportation, either by car or plane, a whole lot easier by not taking up as much space, making it a less awkward shape and protecting the wheels. Another important consideration for me, as someone who lives in a one bedroom flat, uses crutches and could benefit from owning a wheelchair, was that a wheelchair with folding wheels would take up less storage space at home making this a real possibility for me.

You can watch this short video to find out more about how the folding wheel was developed:

Folding Wheel – prototypes from Vitamins on Vimeo.

Morph Folding Wheel: The Details

• 24” (61 cm)
• Dimensions when folded: 32 x 12.5” (81.3 x 31.8)
• Wheel set weight capacity: 300 lb. (136.4 kg)
• Weight per wheel: 7.5 lb. (3.4 kg)
• Material: glass filled nylon
• Hand rim material: polypropylene
• Set of two
• Passed all RESNA/ANSI impact, curb drop and double drum testing standards

Morph Folding Wheels are available for pre-order from Maddak Inc and cost $950.00 per pair.

Having been launched earlier this year, I’m keen to see how the Morph Folding Wheel will be received and I’m sure that winning this award will help the product to go from strength to strength. So well done to Duncan Fitzsimons and the Vitamins design team on their well deserved award, after all not many people can truly say that they’ve redesigned the wheel! : )

Winner of Design of the Year 2013:

GOV.UK WEBSITE - Designed by Government Digital Service

Category winners:

Architecture:

TOUR BOIS-LE-PRÊTRE, PARIS - Designed by Frédéric Druot, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal

Fashion:

DIANA VREELAND: THE EYE HAS TO TRAVEL - Directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland

Furniture:

MEDICI CHAIR - Designed by Konstantin Grcic for
Mattiazzi

Graphics:

VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE IDENTITY - Designed by John Morgan Studio

Products:

KIT YAMOYO - Designed by ColaLife and PI Global

Transport:

MORPH FOLDING WHEEL - Designed by Vitamins for 
Maddak Inc.

The Designs of the Year awards, ‘The Oscars of the design world’ showcase the most innovative and imaginative designs from around the world, over the past year, spanning seven categories: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Transport and Product.

Want to see the Designs of the Year 2013 nominees and winners up close? Then why not visit the exhibition being held at the Design Museum until 7th July 2013.

We’d like to invite you to a workshop on Saturday 20th April, 1pm – 4.30pm at The Jury’s Inn Hotel, 101 Stroudley Road, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 4DJ to design and develop Doc Ready, a digital tool to help young people get the most out of their mental health related GP visits (see the invitation at the bottom of this post for more details).

Enabled by Design is a Doc Ready project partner along with FutureGov, Neontribe and Social Spider. Our mission is to make something awesome that supports young people to feel more confident about their GP appointments by helping them to: know what to expect from a GP visit, get ready for it and make a note of what happened at the end.

We’ve had lots of conversations with young people to find out what they want and now we need the help of both young people (aged 16 – 25) and mental health professionals (including GPs) to design the tool itself.

This will be a fun and interactive session, where you get to tell us what you think! We can’t build a tool that meets your needs without your involvement so please do register for the event at http://docreadydesignworkshop.eventbrite.com. Spaces are limited so make sure you book quickly!

You can find out more about Doc Ready in the following places:

Website: www.docready.org
Twitter: @doc_ready
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Doc-Ready/296916860435986

So my idea is two-fold: 1, the tripod head should come out towards you, so that it’s easier to reach in a chair, and 2, the legs should automatically extend from the touch of a button (or maybe even a remote or voice command would be really cool!) My wheelchair seat can elevate and stuff, so it has these little sensors on the bottom of the seat so that it can tell when it touches something and it stops it from going too far and crashing into the ground or whatever. If we could put something like that on the bottom of the tripod legs, then you just attach the camera to the head, hold it in place where you want it to be, press the button (or the remote or voice command) and let the legs extend until the sensors on them reach the ground and stop. Done! Quick, easy. You’d still need 3 legs on it, I think. And they’d need to be heavy-duty enough to counterbalance the weight of the camera being cantelevered out towards you, and yet still light enough so that when it’s all colapsed, it’s as portable as possible.

Any thoughts anybody?

Or could have a master remote with buttons which relate to each of the items to cause them to flash/make a sound. (Obviously wouldn’t want to lose the remote though).

Or another version could be used where two strips are paired (for regularly used items) e.g phone and keys, where pressing the button on one locates the other and vice versa.