How can we design a piece of 3D printable assistive technology that will improve accessibility on campus?
Why the Slide Guide?
A RIT, students are required to swipe their IDs to enter locked rooms and building, including on-campus housing. Lining the card up with the ID slot is challenging for people with limited hand dexterity, resulting in frustration, dependence, and time stuck in the cold trying to get inside. The Slide Guide can be added to the card readers at RIT without screws or adhesive, and is unobtrusive to people who don't need it.
The design improves the overall experience by making it faster and more mindless. Having a device that stays on the reader removes the burden of having to carry a specialized adapted card everywhere, and improved the experience for disabled and able bodied students alike.
The Slide Guide takes 27 grams of filament and can be printed without supports in about 2 hours. The design could be modified to other dimensions to fit additional use-cases. You could even print them in school colors to show school spirit!
This was a group project created by myself, Jill Schmid, Ethan Lee, Yichen Wu, and Gabriel Scavo. This design won first place in T-minus 2024, an annual project sponsored by the RIT Industrial Design department, in collaboration with BlueHeartHero.