It’s a great week for makers in NYC! In the run up to World Maker Faire today and this weekend in Queens, NYC, Hackaday held a meetup last night in Manhattan. The focus was on the topic of ‘assistive technologies,’ one of their Hackaday Prize 2016 categories. Presentations were given by DIYAbility, the Enable Community Foundation, and the Neil Squire Society. Additional presentations were given by Wazer, and Microchip (discussing their acquisition of Atmel and the future of PIC & AVR), and community announcements were also told.

Here’s a look at some of the things we saw:

DIYAbility told some wonderful success stories, and concluded with three simple rules:

 
If DIYAbility sounds familiar they were chosen as a NYC Next Top Maker in 2014.

The Enable Community Foundation talked about and demonstrated LimbForge, an open-source “tool for precisely sizing upper limb assistive devices for 3D printing.”

Chad Leaman from the Neil Squire Society showed some iterations of their ‘sip & puff’ devices for disabled users to interface with various screen designs and form factors, including this early prototype with custom electronics, seen on the projection screen.

Louis Beaudoin, maker of the SmartMatrix and Learn Guides using it, showed off some new prototype designs he’s working on, all nicely fitted inside a weatherproof Otter case:

And maker-notable Drew Fustini is in town – after a few years hiatus – and showed off his version of this Teensy E-Paper Adapter Board project from Hacakday.io.

Thanks again to everyone who came out and saw some thoughtful presentations and hung out to discuss projects – and congrats to Sophi and Shayna and their team for organizing a wonderful shindig!

We’re all already looking forward to the next one – but first up, World Maker Faire!