Weighing Our Options
We got some surprising news last week in that Catherine Getchell, Director of Disability Resources, informed us she’d be unwilling to support the event if we were using 407 South Craig as our venue. This is based on her aforementioned issues with the building’s accessibility, namely narrow spaces, doorways, and lack of plentiful handicapped restrooms. Regardless, this prompted us to shop around for any other possible venue options.
Our first move was looking into spots on campus that could be available, based on suggestions from Catherine and some ETC faculty. Many of the possible spaces were rented out already, however. Finding a room that fit our size and accessibility needs while also being open for a full weekend just a couple weeks in advance turned out to be pretty hard.
We instead began considering using the ETC itself as a venue. It was cleared by the faculty that such a thing is possible, and it is available that weekend due to the mid-semester break. Knowing that it was an option, we put together a few actions we could take to vet the space. We borrowed the ETC’s wheelchair briefly to roll around the building and get a general feeling for what problems we encountered. We also took a tape measure to the area that the Jam would be held in to find some concrete numbers with which to compare. After some thought, we prepared a list of our perceived pros and cons comparing the ETC with 407 South Craig St. We have reached out to a few wheelchair-users in the hopes of having them look at the space and give us direct feedback.
Assistive Technology Maker’s Fair
Muhammad attended Pittsburgh’s Assistive Technology Maker’s Fair this Tuesday and Wednesday. While there he attended a handful of talks on the subject of accessible design, simple prototyping practices and tools, and met a lot of potential participants for our event. By the end of the event, we had a handful of fun, new ideas for creation as well as a collection of names to reach out to for recruitment.
Visiting Guests
Anthony Daniels visited our project this week and gave us some helpful feedback on what his initial thoughts and reactions to our project are. This covered topics including his experience with disability, how he thought we could advertise the event, and his gut-reaction to our existing PR materials. Those materials are mostly set in stone by this point in time, but it’s good to get feedback nonetheless.
We were also visited by Steve Spohn from AbleGamers to give him a recap of our current progress. He provided his insight and perspective on a handful of topics related to the project, including our application form and PR materials as well. We were able to get his take on the accessibility of the ETC while he was here, which is very convenient for us being stuck in this venue decision as we are. His take was that the ETC was more or less adequate, and, generally speaking, folks with disabilities are more than used to running into issues in any public space. That is no excuse for having a sub-optimal venue, of course, but is reassuring to hear that it would not be a total slap in the face.
Event Workflow
We mocked up a workflow of how we imagine the event going down so that we could better plan for everything needed. This helped us clarify questions we still have about certain logistical concerns, primarily who is responsible for handling them. Namely, we have a few legal questions about liabilities/IP, we aren’t sure who is handling meals for the event, who is creating/conducting the workshops, and so on. We had a lengthy meeting with our clients to go over the workflow which helped clear up a lot, but also raised a few other concerns. As for our own contribution, we will be working in the next week to finalize what sort of tech we think each team should be given and also to set up a meeting with CMU Legal to go over some of the legalities.