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Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
Show Notes:
Sam Schmidt www.SamSchmidt.com | www.Arrow.com | www.ArrowSAMcar.com
Assistive Technology Update Listener Meetup at RESNA! www.EasterSealsTech.com/meetup
Evaluating the Accessibility of Microsoft Office for the iPad – AccessWorld® – May 2014 http://buff.ly/1k13yNc
ODIN VI Talking Mobile Phone for the Visually Impaired http://buff.ly/1k11CEf
Faces and Facts of Disability http://buff.ly/1jt4a9H
App: Math vs. Zombies | www.BridgingApps.org
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SAM SCHMIDT: Hello, I’m Sam Schmidt, founder of Schmidt Petersen Motorsports and also chairman of the Conquering Paralysis Now Foundation, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.
WADE WINGLER: Hi, this is Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana with your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up-to-date on the latest developments in the field of technology, designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs. Welcome to episode number 155 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on May 16 of 2014. My guest today is indie racing car legend, Sam Schmidt, who has quadriplegia and is about to drive a Corvette over 100 miles an hour around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Fascinating interview. .
Also, we talk about accessibility of Microsoft Office on the iPad for voice over users. A new ODIN talking mobile phone for folks who are blind or visually impaired. Something new from the Social Security Administration. And an app called Math vs. Zombies. We hope you’ll check us out online at www.eastersealstech.com. Shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAproject. Or give us a call on our listener line at 317-721-7124.
Are you going to be at the RESNA conference in Indianapolis the summer? On June 13, in the morning, we’re going to have a meet up of assistive technology update listeners. If you like our show, come and hang out with us. We’ll talk about assistive technology and gets know each other. Check out www.eastersealstech.com/meetup to register.
A few weeks ago, the world got excited about the fact that the iPad now has Microsoft Office. You can download Microsoft Office for the iPad. It’s free, but it doesn’t work fully functionally unless you also have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription. I’m looking at a blog post here from the American Foundation for the Blind by Bill Holden, and he takes some time going through in depth the accessibility of Microsoft office on the iPad. He talks about using it with voice over. He talks about how you can touch and explore or you can use swipe gestures to move around through Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. He talks about some of the frustrations that he found and that he found some accessibility and he also found some things that just didn’t work very well. Sort of a good news/bad news review. He also talks about the fact that the codename for the iPad version of Microsoft Office is the same as the version of Microsoft office that is due out for the Mac later this year. He indicates that he hopes the accessibility for the full version for the Mac will be more accessible to anyone for the iPad. I want you to go and check out Bill’s blog post so you can learn more about the details of accessibility for Microsoft office for the iPad. Check our show notes.
Our friend, Andrew Liebs, is the guide over at about.com. He teaches people all about assistive technology. He’s got a blog post that’s about the ODIN VI talking mobile phone for the visually impaired. If you’re not interested in a smart phone or one of those more elaborate devices, but you still want to have accessible access to his cell phone, ODIN looks like a pretty decent choice. It gives you the ability to create and navigate contacts, hear the contacts identified by the name when they call. You can do text messaging, to set alarms, one touch emergency numbers, you can navigate the phone with large tactile buttons in kind of an old-school layout.
It’s a product targeted to folks who are blind or visually impaired especially the senior market, but also has some accessibility related to hearing aid compatibility. It includes a bunch of prepaid monthly plan starting at $10 and going up to $40 for unlimited minutes, and it seems to work on the T-Mobile network as Aladdin Mobile is a T-Mobile MVNO. I’m going to pop a link in the show notes over to Andrew’s article, and you can learn more about the cell phone for folks are blind or visually impaired.
The Social Security Administration has just unveiled a new SSDI website, the Social Security Disability Insurance Program has a new website with all kinds of information. You go over to SocialSecurity.gov/disabilityfacts. There’s all kinds of stuff there including social media, stories of people who are on SSDI, materials that you might use to share with the group if you’re educating them, a quiz that tests your knowledge about SSDI, and a video called the faces and fax of disability. I’ll pop a link in the show notes. Check out the new SSDI website.
For the first time ever, the annual RESNA conference will be in Indianapolis, Indiana, right here in our backyard. It’s going to be June 11 through the 15th of 2014 in downtown Indianapolis. We have asked some of the folks at RESNA to call in and let us know what they’re excited about. Here’s one of those calls.
DOUG EATON: Hi, this is Doug Eaton, and assistive technology publisher from Vancouver, British Columbia. I encourage you to attend and participate in our annual RESNA conference in Indianapolis this June. I’m especially excited about the annual Student Design Competition and the university teams RESNA brings to the conference. Please join us. For more information, visit the website. Just search for RESNA. Cheers. See you then.
WADE WINGLER: Each week, one of our partners tells us what’s happening in the ever-changing world of apps. So here’s an app worth mentioning.
AMY BARRY: This is Amy Barry with BridgingApps. This is an app worth mentioning. Today’s featured app is called Math vs Zombies by Tap to Learn Software. It’s an arcade like game app developed for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Students can practice math skills from basic operations through multidigit multiplication and division. The app concept is original, creative, and super fun. Students are tasked with fighting off an invasion of cartoon zombies through solving simple math equations. Users have to think fast as the zombie approaches with an equation above their head. If the learner puts to correct answer in, it zaps a zombie, transforming the zombie character back to a regular child.
This app is a great resource for elementary and middle school students struggling with math concepts and regular education students that need additional practice. At BridgingApps, we facilitated the use of this app in kindergarten through fifth grade inclusion classes. Students with learning disabilities, autism, dyslexia, etc. all loved this app and it became a quick favorite. I won’t lie, the game is so entertaining that I got sucked into it for quite some time. I would have to say that this creepy, cute zombie app appeals to users of all ages.
Math vs Zombies is an addictive app that allows users to practice and sharpen their math skills. Users can change levels to match their skill levels and progress to unlock up to 150 levels. The simple controls, super engaging graphics, and challenge will keep users zapping zombies four hours. Parents and teachers will appreciate the detailed report card area of the app where they can track progress. Reports can be viewed by grade level, skill, or specific common core standards. Math vs Zombies is $4.99 in the iTunes and Google Play stores. It runs on iPads, iPhones, and Android devices. For more information on this app and others like it, visit BridgingApps.orc.
WADE WINGLER: And before I kick off the interview, I want to let you know that we had a little trouble with Skype and the cell phone connection during this interview. I’ve done my best to clean up the audio and eventually we stopped midpoint and rejoined the call. Please forgive the little bit of audio difficulties we have at the beginning and hopefully we’ll get past that pretty quickly.
I’ve lived in Central Indiana all my life, and it is May, and in central Indiana in May you cannot help but hear about the Speedway. When I drive to work, I see people at the track. I hear racecars and I am exhilarated and thrilled to have on the telephone Sam Schmidt who is a legend in motorsports. A household name when it comes to IndyCar. I’m going to stop talking and let him talk to us a little bit. Sam, how are you today?
SAM SCHMIDT: Wade, I’m doing good. Thanks for having me on the show.
WADE WINGLER: So excited to have you here. Sam, my audience is not a racing audience, but they are very much into assistive technology. They may know that you have been – – you had a long IndyCar race career, that you incurred a spinal cord injury in 2000, and you’re driving again, which is what we’re going to be talking about. But can you tell folks a little bit about what’s going on in your career, in your life right now and a little bit about this semi-autonomous motorcar?
SAM SCHMIDT: Well, career on the motorsports side is going incredible. We won our fourth in a row [Inaudible] championship last year, seventh overall, and this year we’re doing spectacular in the IndyCar series. People online here can watch that IndyCar series Arrow Car number 77. I’m really stoked. I’m really excited about the Sam Project. I was contacted by somebody out of Arrow in Denver, Colorado, and with a simple text, “Hey, my name is so and so, you don’t know me, but would you be interested in placing the Indy 500 next year.”
This was last August. I said absolutely. When I started thinking about it, what did I just get myself into? I said maybe you should tell me a little bit more about your company. I had not heard of Arrow. I looked at them online and basically found out that day, among other things, built the guiding systems for the patrol drones in the Middle East. Also they are a $21 billion global company with 17,000 employees.
It kinda clicked in my brain that they probably had the resources and technology to be able to do what they say they can do. We got more into it. I went to Denver and it turned out to be just this incredible company with a great culture and taking on a new branding called five years out. It’s all about looking ahead and what’s coming down the pipeline and how can we service the world with our technology. Combine that with the whole area of assistive technology and people with disabilities.
So they had heard about my career, about my injury, and said this is a perfect candidate to drive this car. So that’s how it all came about. And what’s more perfect than an American icon, a Corvette, and also a car that’s evolved to be probably the most technologically advanced car in the world with all of its inbuilt gadgets. It’s just fantastic.
WADE WINGLER: So I read in a press release recently that you been doing some driving out at Wright Patterson come and we are recording kind of early in May. I know that in a few weeks you are going to be driving this car around the track. I know it’s a Corvette and really has some high-end assistive technology, some of which my listeners might be familiar with, some of which they might not. But tell me a little bit about the nuts and bolts of this car. How are you able to drive it?
SAM SCHMIDT: It’s fantastic to be a partnership between several entities, primarily Arrow as the main money source and of course Aerospace out of Ohio, which also works with Arrow in this technology, and the Air Force. So they all worked together to bring different elements to the party. Basically there are infrared cameras inside the car. On my head, I wear a cap, some balls, a beacon. Simply put, if I turn my head to the left, the car turns left. When I turn my head to the right, it turns to the right. As I push back a certain way, it will accelerate the car. And then finally I wear a small mouthpiece on one side of my mouth. As I squeeze out on it lightly, it will lightly apply the brakes. If I squeeze down heavily it heavily applies the brakes just like if you are using your feet. And all those signals are sent to a computer that’s the Arrow side of it. That translates that information to different parts of the car, accelerator, steering, brakes, and tells it what function to do based on the signals. It just happens at hyperspeed. Driving feels incredibly natural after being paralyzed for years.
WADE WINGLER: I can imagine that that’s an exciting experience to get in a high technology piece of equipment like that and drive it. Tell me a little bit about some of the controls and safety mechanisms that are in place, because it sounds to me like there’s a lot of technology. You’re going pretty fast and this car. How does safety manage that’s situation?
SAM SCHMIDT: These guys work with the department of defense so they are into very much into redundancy. Because of that, the car has a built-in GPS tracker and basically [Inaudible] I will be driving around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a 2 1/2 mile track with a 30 slope. Basically it’s programmed so that if I veer outside that 30 foot window, it actually will drive by itself. So that what it means by semi-autonomous, where it’s give me 100% control to drive the car was in this window, but if I have an issue, then it can actually take over. A third level of redundancy is that there are technicians in place just like an IndyCar team. They are watching. They can drive the car if I’m unable to. [Inaudible] I feel 100% safe doing it and it’s a great feeling.
WADE WINGLER: And as happens with Skype, every once in a while we have some audio degradation throughout the interview. I interrupted Sam and I called him back and have a little better audio from here on out. My apologies for the technical difficulties, but that’s the way of the world these days.
So, Sam, with all this high tech stuff going on and high-speed driving, tell me a little bit about what keeps you safe when you’re doing this.
SAM SCHMIDT: Well, it’s been an amazing. Obviously that was one of our first parameters and requirements going in, that I had to be 100% safe. So these three companies doing so much with the Department of Defense, they’ve got layers of redundancies in their own every day jobs, they built that into the system.
Number one, I’m 100% driving the car, but I’m driving within about a 25 or 30 foot wide window on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They built that in the GPS trackers, so if I have an issue or I veer off-line, the car will actually take over and drive itself, thus semi-autonomous driving. As a third level of redundancy, there’s a picture of, or by engineers that are in the pit lane to just like my IndyCar team. They are watching what’s going on via satellite tracker and the whole nine yards. If they see anything wrong, they can actually take over from pit lane, so at that time it’s like driving a drone.
It’s just an amazing level of technology and the people that I’ve met on this project are way beyond my IQ level. I have total confidence that’s it’s going to be safe. It’s going to be error-free. I’m really looking forward to it. I got to drive it up and down the runway at Wright Patterson for the first time. I’m really looking forward to driving at the Sunday on pole day at Indianapolis.
WADE WINGLER: That’s going to be great. I don’t know if you know the answer to this question or not, but a Corvette is a fairly expensive automobile to drive. When you add on these layers of technology, any idea of what the cost were talking about for the sort of automobile?
SAM SCHMIDT: Obviously they ordered the automobile, it costs around $65,000. It’s displaying their technology and everything on it is a prototype. So my level of injury is really high, so I don’t know that there are hundreds of thousands of people with my level of injury that will be out there looking to buy this so much as — automated driving or automated technology in the consumer market with auto manufacturers is a really big topic right now. Nissan announced they will have an autonomous car by 2020. Obviously this is very interesting for people with disabilities. I think we also want our level of independence so the idea of having a combination car were a person with my level could drive it is very attractive but it also has sort of the overbearing ability to take over if I have a problem. It’s all very fascinating.
Realistically it’s going to take a bit of time to do something like this to be consumer viable or financially viable. What’s amazing about this project is that literally 85 or 90% of what went into the project is off-the-shelf and consumer available. It just took some incredibly smart minds to put the pieces together. The fact that they did it in seven months is even more remarkable. Again, these guys are all about solving problems and they did this one in a hurry.
WADE WINGLER: That’s excellent. I’m not sure that a lot of folks realize that one of the original purposes of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was to road test tires and things that eventually showed up in mainstream automobiles. I love the fact that that’s what’s happening here. You guys are doing some high tech prototype sort of stuff. I think it really does have implication for folks with disabilities and everybody down the road. Sam, I also know that in addition to your work with the racing team and Sam Project, you’re also involved in a company called Braun. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
SAM SCHMIDT: Braun has been an amazing experience. If you would’ve told me three years ago that I would’ve been a part owner of a company in Winamac, Indiana, that’s a very heavily US based manufacturing company, I would’ve told you you’re nuts, because everybody knows that US manufacturing due to cost and other economic elements is a very tough business to be in. Margins are low and you just really have a hard time competing with offshore competitors.
But the reality is Ralph Braun, over 50 years, built an absolutely incredible company with a fantastic culture and very dedicated team members there. Most importantly they service the disabled community with a product line that is very high quality and reasonably cost and reliable. So when Ralph was diagnosed with cancer about three years ago, he started looking for what’s going to be the legacy of the company, how is it going to continue going on for another 50 years, what can we do to maintain the value that we established here.
I got lucky. I was at the right place and the right time. Two years ago next week we closed a deal with his family and myself and another gentleman to be a part of Braun going forward, and I was able to spend probably the next 14 months with Ralph before he passed away. It’s just been an amazing ride meeting these people and getting involved in the company and meeting end users and starting to travel around and go to dealerships and represent the brand and also thinking about what the future is for this company. It’s been great. I look forward to being part of this for a long time to come. Now they’ve got into global expansion in South America and Europe and Asia, so it’s just a very exciting time. I’m really proud to be a part of this company.
WADE WINGLER: And I’m excited with what’s happening at Braun too. Later in June, I have a show coming out with the interview some of the folks there and talk about the process. I got to go to Winamac and tour the factory. It was a pretty cool experience to see the work that they are doing there. If folks are interested in Braun, later in June there’s going to be a show about that. Sam, I also know that you are going to be speaking at the RESNA conference that comes up in Indianapolis in June. Do you want to talk about that just a bit? I know you’re going to be keynoting for us.
SAM SCHMIDT: We’re working with Mike Murphy and the folks that are involved with RESNA. We’ll have a video of the Sam Project, bring the car on stage. I think it’s June 12 and 13th. Just a couple of weeks after the Indy 500. Hopefully we’ll be able to grab an Indy 500 trophy out with us as well. Very excited about that because the people in the audience here are heavy influencers whether it’s an assistive technology angle or people that interact with those with disabilities on a daily basis. Frankly, they have a strong influence on whether or not these people develop the attitude to get back out and get jobs and be active members of society which I think is absolutely critical to somebody with a disability living a long life. You have to have a reason to get out there every morning and assistive technology devices make that happen.
WADE WINGLER: And I will be there and hope to meet you in person when you’re there and get to say hello. I know that you have another meeting you have to go to. Tell me a little bit about your foundation and then give me some contact information so that if folks want to learn more about the Sam Project or your racing team or you in general, how would they find out how to connect with you.
SAM SCHMIDT: Our foundation has been an evolution. It was established when I was still in rehabilitation back in February or March of 2000. Just a bunch of friends sitting around the bed seeing what we can do to fix this problem. We went through a few iterations of small, family-run to keep the cost down, and just really applied the dollars in specific areas to bring in [Inaudible] who used to be was the Chris Reese Foundation to take it up a notch and really develop an infrastructure and sort of a transparent organization with financial reporting and audits and nothing that goes on with that so we can really go after the big donors.
We’ve just embraced another evolution which is going from a totally North American emphasis to a global emphasis with a name change to Conquering Paralysis Now. Really that is solely for the purpose of letting people know this is what we want to do. We want to conquer paralysis now. It’s a global album. We’ll need global brains to fix it and global dollars to fix it. We’re actually making that announcement race weekend at our annual gala here in May. Little bit of an advanced information for you. Conquering Paralysis Now going forward will be all about solving the problem and doing that in a very unique way. That still has a website of either SamSchmidt.org or Conquering Paralysis Now is open for the public to view. Also Arrow.com has a link to a very interactive literary tool explanation of how Sam Project is working. I really look forward to this Sunday’s pole day getting out and doing four laps in this Corvette and showing the world what great minds can do if they put their minds together in a cooperative fashion. Hopefully people will watch it on ABC. There will be a piece that Sunday, some stuff on SportsCenter, and then race weekend, Memorial Day, there will be some more. It’s all very exciting and coming to a head.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. Sam, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy morning. I appreciate the work you’re doing only for the racing industry but also to improve the independence of the folks who have disabilities. We predict that.
SAM SCHMIDT: Thank you, Wade.
WADE WINGLER: Sam Schmidt is an IndyCar racer. The team owner and recent driver of the new semi-autonomous motorcar that will be driving around the Indianapolis 500 just here in a few days.
WADE WINGLER: Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? Call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Looking for show notes from today’s show? Head on over to EasterSealstech.com. Shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject, or check us out on Facebook. That was your Assistance Technology Update. I’m Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana.