At 60 years old, Kimberly is well-acquainted with a world where everyday tasks come with obstacles and barriers. Diagnosed in childhood with Usher’s Syndrome, a genetic condition affecting both hearing and vision, Kimberly now lives with ninety percent hearing loss and retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive condition that narrows her peripheral vision and diminishes her ability to see in low light.
Despite relying on various technologies to assist her daily, Kimberly continues to face challenges.
Her outlook on living independently transformed when she met a group of McMaster Engineering students in a first-year design course. These students, she believes, have the potential to create a brighter future for differently abled individuals worldwide.
Engineering real-world solutions
The Integrated Cornerstone Design Projects in Engineering course – or ENGINEER 1P13 – is part of the Fundamental Skills in Engineering (FUSE) curriculum, focused on team-based learning across disciplines, bridging technical and non-technical skills to help students learn how to address complex problems. ENGINEER 1P13 is the entrance course to the scaffolded curriculum and is mandatory for all first-year engineering students.
Over the course of eight months, students undertake three team-based projects with the support of faculty mentors, instructional coordinators, instructional assistants, lab technicians and teaching assistants. Each year, the final project challenges students to collaborate with a client who has different abilities. Their goal is to design an innovative product that addresses a specific need or desire in the client’s life, overcoming barriers created by a lack of accessibility features.
A major barrier Kimberly encounters with many accessibility devices on the market is their lack of versatility. Most products cater to a single disability, rarely addressing multiple facets of accessibility needs in one device.
Kimberly attended 1P13 classes and collaborated with each group of students, discussing areas of her life and daily tasks that hindered her independence or made day-to-day activities more challenging. The students then worked together to devise innovative solutions to assist her.
“Engineering is ultimately about people—understanding their needs, challenges, and aspirations,” says Shelir Ebrahimi, assistant professor in chemical engineering and the course coordinator and project lead for ENGINEER 1P13. “By designing ‘with’ and not just ‘for’ individuals like Kimberly, our students gain more than technical skills; they develop empathy, creativity and a deep sense of purpose. This experience transforms how they see engineering and its potential to create a more inclusive world.”
Kimberly describes her experience with the students as wonderful and eye-opening, revealing a world of possibilities. Her message to them is to continue pursuing accessibility-conscious engineering.
Guided by IMPACT
The final project in ENGINEER 1P13 is an integral component of the broader Interdisciplinary, Meaningful, Practice, Applied, Community, Transformative (IMPACT) Initiative. This initiative brings together a wide range of collaborators, including faculty members, undergraduate and graduate students from engineering and science, occupational therapists, healthcare professionals and alumni.
Spearheaded by Robert Fleisig (Engineering), Lovaye Kajiura (Biology/Science), Brenda Vrkljan (Occupational Therapy), Liz Hassan (Engineering) and Ebrahimi, the initiative aims to equip students with a comprehensive understanding of how to develop innovative, real-world solutions to urgent challenges affecting communities locally, nationally and globally.
In this effort, engineering students work closely with 300 science students and alumni, who actively participate in the learning experience. Serving as design reviewers and knowledge mobilizers, these collaborators offer valuable, constructive feedback to support the engineering students’ development.
“The IMPACT Initiative confirm the university’s enduring commitment to connect with and care for those in our greater community. The generation of ideas into creative solutions empowers our students to hone their teamwork, problem solving, and research skills. These enduring partnerships drive continuous, meaningful positive change.”
1P13 Design Showcase
On April 8, five teams selected from more than 200 student projects were invited to the 1P13 Design Showcase where they presented their projects to a panel of judges, their peers and friends and family.
Learn about the winning projects, in the students’ own words, below:
1st place: The Game Changers
Team members: Adrianna Borm, Mario Taurasi-Wood, Clayton Willis, Yiru Fan, Vaishnav Jayaraj
We wanted to create a product that would give Kimberly a source of worry-free enjoyment in her life. As a group, we discussed personal experiences of joy, and we settled on the unanimous decision of a board game. Our design had to be fully accommodating for anyone who played it, as well as making sure that it provided a level playing field – no one was to have any advantage. All in all, we desired to create a game where disability doesn’t define you, but the laughter shared does.
Thus, we created The Game Changer; it’s an accessible version of 2 household board games, Sorry! and checkers. It incorporates many accessible elements, most notably magnetism, audio, high-contrast and ergonomics. Magnetism is used to ensure the pieces stay in place and are not knocked over easily, while also allowing the user to feel the attraction (guidance) when placing a piece on the board. There are raised borders which further ensure the user’s confidence of their game piece’s placement.
The games’ backgrounds are high contrast and bold, giving users with vision impairments easier and accommodating experience. Instead of the usual cards/die needed to play Sorry!, a programmable audio button was created in its place. The user may hit the button on their turn to hear a randomized action. It has loud volume and a double-click feature to repeat the instructions if they didn’t catch it the first time. Finally, the game pieces have an ergonomic design, allowing them to be manipulated with minimal hand-control and grip. The gameboard is also double sided, fitting 2 games instead of one, reducing the storage space required.
2nd place: ChordHero
Team members: Nitya Patel, Simon Liu, Parker P., Ara Erfan, Ibrahim El Khatib
ChordHero is a visual-auditory accessible guitar-learning app designed to help users, including those
with Usher Syndrome, learn how to play songs on the guitar. The app is designed to support users with various visual impairments through the use of high-contrast colors, to ensure that visual elements remain clear and visible for her; paired with screen reader accessibility that uses audio prompts attached to every interactable feature within the program.
Taking inspiration from rhythm games, ChordHero uses a sliding animation to cue users when to play notes or chords. Chords appear as colored blocks that move across the screen, with each color representing a different chord. A metronome keeps time, while black blocks represent beats to help users stay in rhythm. The song speed can be adjusted at any time. When a chord block reaches a designated point, the app speaks the name of the chord to prompt the user to play along.
For beginners, ChordHero includes a tab-style slider that maps all six guitar strings using numbered boxes to show which frets to play. These boxes slide across the screen and cross a vertical play line, prompting users to play the note in real time—like animated guitar tabs.
With its accessible design and interactive features, ChordHero provides an inclusive learning experience for guitar learners of all degrees of ability and the ChordHero team offers this program as a aid to help
Kimberly overcome the unique obstacles that Usher Syndrome creates in learning the guitar and hopes she finds it to be a valuable aid in her musical journey.
3rd place: Burner Buddy
Team members: Brian Chen, Cy McKee, Deborah Strout, Lana Yong, Koen Zoskey
The Burner Buddy is a stove-top alignment tool that provides visual and tactile assistance to simplify the cooking experience for those with visual impairments. While in use, this device offers users safety and confidence in their pot’s location throughout the cooking process.
Our product has been manufactured and tested to work on a variety of flat stovetops; with our team adhering to the manufacturing standards, so all potential burner sizes correspond with one of our three options.
Our client Kimberly’s desire to become less reliant on a colour contrasting camera to use her stovetop inspired us to make this intuitive product aimed to minimize her reliance on her phone. The Burner Buddy’s simple, slip-resistant design makes it easy for the client to install and use our product independently, without introducing permanent alterations or greatly limiting the space on her stovetop.
Our goal with the Burner Buddy is to simplify the cooking process and minimize any difficulties by offering a solution that is secure, reliable and easy to use.