Students with Blindness

[jwalters1902]

I'm not sure of the current student in question, but being a parent of a child that is legally blind "20/200" vision. We do not let that stop him and nor does he let it. He is currently on a FLL team and has been around FIRST since he was 2 years old. He currently has a CCTV, a FarView, and izoom technology to utilize. But he finds it best to be 5 inches from a Monitor to see. He does everything from working on the Lego Robot, Project, and Programming, and is treated as a team member. The students know his limitations and work with him to help work out anything he has trouble with.

His older brothers are on 4-H Exploding Bacon Robotics FRC team 1902 in Florida and the students, mentors, parents,etc. treat him like any other student. Today he was actually giving strategy ideas to the teams at our Mini Kickoff.

Good Luck - I hope they find a team to work with them.

[J-Blondie]

I don't have any experience with anyone with a disability and FIRST unfortunately, but I can say that even if his team isn't able to put together an opportunity in programming for him, Chairman's and other award submissions are always a good back-up plan. The Chairman's presentation for a team is a very important part of the competition and if he doesn't mind getting up in front of judges and doing a presentation with other members from his team, that might also be a good place for him.

I would also like to say that I think the FIRST community is one of the best communities to be involved with when facing a challenge such as this. The community is generally very receptive to anyone, no matter who they are, and embrace them fully and teach them the meaning of FIRST and all it has to offer. Please feel free to contact me further if there is anything the family wants to know about FIRST. I would love to help via email to give an advice or any help and support they may need with getting involved. I am sure that everything will work out fine and that this student will be an exceptional one just like anyone else. Good luck this season everyone!

[JaneYoung]

Hi Lanse,

Thank you for creating this thread.

I spent some time this past fall helping to mentor an FLL team at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired here in Austin, Texas. It is their rookie year and they have worked very hard - as have all of the FLL teams.

If you would like, I would be more than happy to talk with the teacher/concerned parent who spoke with you. I will send you a private message with my phone number and e-mail and please feel free to forward it to the teacher.

I have always been a believer that anything is possible. Students in these FIRST programs continue to prove me right.

Thank you again,
Jane

[Seth Mallory]

Thank You for this topic. We have had disabled students before but this would be different. We are a machine shop intensive program so it would be difficult. All of our disabled students have worked on the robot and not felt they had make work jobs. While I had thought about the awards submissions the use of a screen reader is a new one for me and would allow the student to work on the robot if interested in programing. I believe that using our Sherline mill and lathe we could give enough training so that the student would have a feel for what the team is doing on the larger machines. I think it would be easer and more beneficial for the student we started a Vex team but I will give this subject a lot more thought. Thanks again for this new project.