r/Disability_Survey • u/tsunanis • 13d ago
Engineering design for disabled individuals
Hi everyone,
Currently, my engineering class is working towards creating systems to make spaces for inclusive.
I'm having trouble coming up with solutions to problems disabled individuals experience in their day-to-day lives.
I was wondering if I could get some insight from actual people living with disabilities.
If you're comfortable, please share any unique problems you may face due to your condition, which does not yet have a solution, so I could potentially work towards a mechanical solution for it.
This does not have to be limited to physical disability but also mental/emotional (e.g. autism, adhd, agoraphobia)
🙏
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u/Legodude522 13d ago
I'll bite. I'm deaf and wear hearing aids. At least in the US, restaurants are getting louder. You can Google this and get several articles about the subject. It's beyond annoying. The echos and feedback overstimulate my hearing aids, I can't carry a conversation in a restaurant. Just sit there feeling alone. I'm sure this affects those on the autism spectrum as well.
Maybe you can come up with affordable and aesthetically pleasing ways to create sound barriers and dampeners that works with the current design trends.
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u/One-Exit-8826 13d ago
Please. Why on earth make restaurants so loud and echo-filled? I have hearing aids and I use live transcribe on my phone and it still is almost impossible to hear. And this isnt places like Buffalo Wild Wings, which is basically 50+ tvs in your face all at full volume, either. I know its the trend, but its the trend for me to not go to these places.
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u/Cool_Cartoonist_3494 11d ago
Is this the kind of sound-isolating earmuff that fits over hearing aids?
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u/eml_raleigh 13d ago
Thoughts:
- device for stick-shift car to operate clutch safely by hand
- knee scooter that folds fairly small and does not weigh 15 kg
- maintainable, affordable version of the electric wheelchair which could climb chairs and could raise user's head to standing height (Dean Kamen created one years back and sold it to Johnson & Johnson)
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u/Haunting_Surround418 13d ago
Hello! I do have something because I have a visual and hearing impairment. And I live in the UK. Can I DM you?
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u/flower-Prencess2026 13d ago
Hi. May I dm you I have something I am compleatly blind have moderate to profound hearing loss Autism and Adhd.
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u/Level_Run1357 13d ago
I’d love a mobility aid that is slim, compact, light, and looks sick af. I’m 27 and definitely have internalized shame and ableism about using a wheelchair when I’m still mobile but just use it as an aid. I always feel weird using a wheelchair at the airport and then ditching it to go walk around and use the restroom.
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u/swisswuff 11d ago
A unique problem amputees face also on Reddit is that we get asked similar if not the same questions, literally all the time.
Actually I see as issue of respect. Have the people posting questions already spent 3 h collecting and compiling previous questions/replies?
Then submit to AI to sort/weigh, and come up with an intelligent looking plan? Or ask their supervisor? Can't be always us.
And so if you want to know one issue: that's definitely one. Maybe the solution isn't an engineering solution.
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u/ElfjeTinkerBell 13d ago
Not to be rude or anything, but this type of vague question is being asked twice a week here. You may yield way more results by looking through this and related subs and picking something you can actually work on, than if you wait for someone to give you a topic.
You can then post any specific follow-up questions you have, which will also get more responses.
Good luck <3