Assistive Technology Controller - Boxes and Buttons

I made an adaptive controller that is not only accessible, but also easy to make. Often accessible controllers can cost several-hundred dollars, but my adaptive controller can be made mostly from materials that you already have. Each box has two different buttons - one on each interior side - and the exterior buttons can be placed wherever you need to provide another two buttons. These buttons provide extra room for error and are all easy to use especially with the exterior buttons because you can use other parts of your body to activate them.

• 2 cardboard boxes
• Electrical tape
• Aluminum tape (or aluminum foil)
• Wires
• Wire Strippers
• Wire Cutters
• 3d printed slider that you can find here
• Coat hangers
• Copper tape
• Alligator clips
• Makeymakey
• Velcro
• Suction cups
• Hot Glue
• Large Foam Sphere
• Saw
• Suction cups found here

Note: You can remap the buttons on the makeymakey with the instructions here.

Cut one side of your box on the shorter side to be in this shape. This may require you to cut through multiple "flaps", but that will not be a problem.

REPEAT ON SECOND BOX

Open up your box all the way and cut the corners so that they look like the box on the right. You will need a small gap between the sides of the box and the back, but the flaps fill that space which is why they need to be cut.

REPEAT ON SECOND BOX

1) Cover the interior of both sides with aluminum tape. If you do not have aluminum tape you can use aluminum foil instead just use electrical tape to tape the edges.

2) Also put aluminum tape in a square big enough to fit your hand just inside the front of the box. You want the tape to fold over the corner of the box and to be about a quarter inch over the folded side.

3) There needs to be a gap big enough for an alligator clip between the back and the sides so feel free to use scissors to create that gap if needed. When you fold the box back up, it should look like the two following photos.

4) You can also use hot glue on the outside of the box to glue the sides down. This will not affect the circuit because the conductive tape is on the inside.

REPEAT ON SECOND BOX

1) Use hot glue to stick velcro on the right side of one box and the left side of the other box. Also stick velcro on the top of the box with the right-side velcro and the bottom of the box with the left-side velcro to provide an alternate set-up.

2) Hot glue velcro to the outside of each part of the 3D printed slider. Stick the velcro of the sliders to the boxes and connect the sliders to keep the boxes together.

1) Create a location to place your makeymakey by cutting out two similarly sized rectangles with foam core. Cut the second one to just have a perimeter large enough to hold the makeymakey. Make sure there is a gap in the perimeter for the bottom part of the makeymakey to plug into the cord.

2) Hot glue holder on the top left corner of the right box

1) Cut out 2 circles of foam core just bigger than the palms of your hand.

2) Hot Glue aluminum foil (or tape the aluminum tape) in a circle about 2 cm from the edge of the circle.

3) Go around the edge applying copper tape so that it looks like the circle above.

4) Then hot glue and tape the coat hanger to the middle of the back of the circle.

REPEAT ON SECOND CIRCLE

1) Measure out two wires that are both a little longer than the coat hanger and cut with the wire cutters.

2) Use your wire strippers to strip both ends of the 2 wires.

3) Use electrical tape to connect one end of one wire with the copper tape on the back of the circle.

4) Then connect one end of the other wire to the aluminum foil/tape on the front of the circle. Make sure the front connection is at the bottom of the foil to allow a larger surface area of the button.

5) Wrap both wires around the coat hanger and the wires and the hanger incrementally as you move down the wire. There should be a little excess wire.

REPEAT FOR OTHER BUTTON

1) Saw the foam ball in half.

2) Stick the hanger through the foam ball until deep enough for the button to stand up by itself.

3) Stick the tup of the suction cups to bottom of the foam ball.

REPEAT FOR OTHER BUTTON

1) Using the MakeyMakey you can now attach all of the alligator clips. Label the clips as you attach them for clarification. For the boxes, you can connect the front squares on the inside of each box to the "Earth" part of the MakeyMakey. Then you can attach the alligator clips to the backs of the boxes by connecting them where the aluminum folds over the edges on each side.

2) The left side of the left box connects to the left arrow, right side of the left box connects to the down arrow, the left side of the right box connects to the up arrow, and the right side of the right box connects to the right arrow.

3) The wires connected to the backside of the buttons can connect to "Earth" and the front side of the buttons can be connected to the "click" and "space" buttons on the makeymakey.

All buttons can be changed to activate any button your computer. Again you can click here to remap your MakeyMakey!

You are now done!