Description

The Southwest Virginia Training Center (SWVTC) is a facility that takes care of people suffering from mental retardation. The residents of the facility take part in many activities to build their skills and for their own satisfaction. One of these activities is gardening. The procedure used was very crude and a large number of residents could not participate due to their physical disabilities. The aim of this project was to develop two gardening tools, the Enhanced Accessible Seeding Equipment (EASE) and the Accessible Watering Equipment (AWE) that would allow all but the most severely disabled residents (physically and/or mentally) to participate in these activities.

Features such as a single switch operation compensating for physical disabilities and enhanced cueing and feedback systems to improve cognition and mental capabilities were incorporated. The development of the project was done based on human factors guidelines and followed a systems design approach.

Tools and Techniques

• Development of operational scenario
• Requirements analysis
• Functional flow analysis
• Funtion allocation
• Task analysis
• Protoype development
• Development of usability evaluation criteria & methods

Results / Outputs

Models of the two gardening tools along with specifications document and design guidelines. AWE was designed to fit on different types of wheelchairs and could water plants at different heights & orientations. EASE was designed to handle different types of seeds & soil. The control could be attached to any part of the body & activated by pressing.

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