Researchers address accessibility gap

Researchers from Monash University have developed customised electronic toolkits designed to help encourage STEM knowledge, logical thinking and creativity for people living with intellectual disabilities.

Boffins from the university’s Faculty of Information Technology have developed TronicBoards, a range of customised colour-coded PCBs with large controls designed to facilitate easy circuit-making for diverse intellectual abilities.

Lead researcher PhD candidate Hashini Senaratne said the boards are designed to extend accessibility to the simplified electronics toolkits that aim to engage people with technology, as these are often inaccessible to people with intellectual disabilities.

“We developed TronicBoards as a curated set of electronic modules to address this gap in accessibility,” he said.

“These boards can be combined with conductive tape and other electronic components, including LEDs, vibration motors, buzzers and push buttons to create and demonstrate working electronic circuits.”

The design of the boards was informed by workshops conducted by research co-author Dr Kirsten Ellis involving 148 adults with intellectual disabilities.

“We found that the participants, with varying degrees of support, were able to logically interact with the boards, complete workable circuits and in some cases were also able to add creativity and craft personally meaningful objects like adding lights to a mirror and a music box that can change melodies with a slide switch,” Senaratne said.

Image: Close-up of three TronicBoards connected with conductive tape.