At the risk of showing my age, who remembers Bernie the bolt ?  Saturday night (or was it Sunday?) started out with "up a little, right a little, down a little … shoot !!  Now it’s probably stretching the imagination to think anyone following this blog will know what I’m talking about so here’s an interview featuring Bernie himself.

The whole point of that reminiscence is to show that the technology used in Dream-Racer is very easy to visualise. 

Since a picture can paint a thousand words I thought this one would help to explain how Dream-Racer is used to drive a radio controlled car – just like the cars in the photo album produced by Nikko.

The user wears the Dream-Racer hat and drivers’ the car by moving their head forward or back, left or right. Each Dream-Racer hat can be fine tuned to the capabilities of the driver and their car can be made to run faster or slower depending on how proficient their driving skills become.

The same technology can be mounted in a glove or shoe to cater for various levels of disability the driver may have.

Next week we’ll be finalizing everything to get ready to take five or six demo sets to the special needs schools around Telford, West Midlands.  No doubt we’ll get some ’real’ feedback from the kids as they start playing with them.

Mike

The last few weeks have been intense.  Followers of this blog will know we are working on a project to develop toys for children with learning difficulties and physical disabilities. (read Daniel’s story)

Yesterday we visited Nikko UK to meet with Geoff Brice and Andy Price and what a welcome we had. Many thanks guys you are tremendous hosts !!

Nikko were involved with the project right at the beginning and so it was natural that we would want to talk to them again now that Dream-Racer is nearing its commercial launch. For those that don’t know, Nikko are one of the largest producers of radio controlled cars, boats, planes etc in the world.  Click on the link to seen their range of toys: Nikko-Toys or take a look at the photos in the album.

After a quick cuppa and stretch – we had spent nearly 4 hours in the car - Geoff took us on a tour of their demo room and workshops.  For boys-that-like-toys this was special to say the least.  Better still, we got to play with all the cars as well. (Pity they don’t have a pool – I wanted to try the radio controlled boats and submarine.)

But, what impressed us most, was the eagerness Geoff and Andy showed in helping us.  We drove away with a boot-load of model cars and parts we will use in the demo units Mark is building (see the "Now it’s your turn challenge" blog entry)

Driving home our minds were buzzing with new concepts, possibilities and what-ifs.  On reflection, it was one of the best business meeting I’ve every had thanks to Geoff and Andy.

Mike

Anyone following this blog will have seen me mention Daniel.  I said Daniel was the first person to receive a radio controlled toy "driven" by what we now call the Dream-Racer technology.

This morning I contacted The Sentinel Newspaper and asked them if they could send me a web link to the original story, written by reporter Iain Burchell, published on December 24th 2002.  Unfortunately no link exists but Sentinel’s Philip Corrigan sent me a copy of the story they published.

Many thanks to Philip.  By the way, this is the link to The Sentinel Newspaper: http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/

Boffins put Daniel back at the controls

Robotics firm design toys so a paralysed boy can play again

BY Iain Burchell

Little Daniel Reeves is overjoyed at receiving his radio controlled car and boat from Father Christmas Picture: Dave Trumble

ROBOTICS wizards have teamed up with a national charity to make a youngster’s Christmas wish come true. Little Daniel Reeves, of Sandyford, was left paralysed from the neck down when he was hit by a car while on holiday in Greece last year. But the five-year-old’s frustration at not being able to play with his toys has now been ended by the Round Table charity and boffins at Rehab Robotics Limited.

The robotics firm designed customised remote control toys for Daniel as part of the Roundtable’s project to make dreams come true for children with life-threatening or terminal illnesses. Daniel can control the model car and boat by wearing baseball hats fitted with sensor equipment, which make the toys move in the same direction as his head.

His mum, Jillian, said he is thrilled by the presents. She said: "It’s brilliant for him to have something he can control himself. He gets really bored and frustrated because he can’t play with any of his other toys. "He didn’t enjoy Christmas last year because he couldn’t really play with anything, so it’s wonderful to see him now.

"He hasn’t stopped playing with the car since he got it and he can’t wait to take the boat down to the lake. "He’s picked the controls up really quickly. He loves James Bond and the car is an Aston Martin like in the films. "We’re very grateful to the Round Table and Rehab Robotics for doing this for him.”

Peter Bone, area co-ordinator for the charity, donned a Santa costume to give Daniel his presents. He said: "His face lit up when he saw me. He’s a plucky young man and we are delighted if we can help to make his life a little bit happier."

The toys were made by Rehab Robotics’ senior design engineer Mark Heath at the firm’s base on the Staffordshire University campus in College Road, Shelton. Mr Heath said the company, which specialises in rehabilitation systems and medical equipment, hopes to make more toys for Daniel in the future. He added: "It was very pleasing to see Daniel playing with the toys. It’s like an extended arm and has given him the freedom to be a child again."

Just coming up to 7:00 PM and I’m whacked.  It seems like I’ve spent most of the day in the car rushing north, south, east and west on the Dream-Racer quest.

It started this morning when I switched on the mobile and received Mark’s text from the night before.  "urgent: get me some red and green leds from Maplin.  Need eight of each.  Need them to finish the Dream-Racer calibration unit.  Get them from Stoke opposite the Sainsbury’s.  Only get those with code numbers CK46a and CK46b"  As it turned out CK46b was a typo and should have been CK47b – but that’s not much between partners. 

Obviously it was going to be one of those gofer days !!

Just a recap, Mark (I’ve just realised Mark rhymes with Spark and all of the electronics guys in the movies are called Sparks …) So, Sparks has built a radio controlled interface - Dream-Racer – that can be mounted into a cap and can be used for "driving" model racing cars similar to the ones produced by Nikko (see the photo album)

He did this so that individuals with upper limb disabilities or restricted hand movements can still play with radio controlled cars.  Sparks and I believe that this technology could be used to design a series of toys for children with learning difficulties and could be very helpful to teachers of children with special educational needs.

As it happened I needed to go to Telford to discuss some aspects of the Dream-Racer logo and caps I had worked on last week.  Actually, there is also a Maplins in Telford so this worked out nicely.  They did have eight reds but only three greens so I needed to drive to Stoke for the five remaining green leds in the West Midland (perhaps I exaggerate a little but not much!)

Now, when you look at one of these very specific CK leds they don’t actually look very special at all but you probably don’t know what I now know – they contain an inbuilt resistor.  How’s that.

Eventually we met up at 4:30.  I delivered the parcel and after a brief chat was back in the car.

I’ll give you all an update later in the week.

Mike

PS – LED stands for "light emitting diode" but I guess you all knew that.

If you have been following this blog – many thanks for your support.  Or, if you’ve just found it by chance here’s a short recap of the story so far.

This blog is about Dream-Racer an electronic device – let’s call it a "black box" that can be used to control, for example, a model racing car such as the ones in the picture album.  Effectively the black box replaces the conventional joy-stick.

Why would anyone be interested in doing that?  Well, the big difference from a joy-stick is that the black box allows us to do some things in a different way that creates opportunities for others to take advantage of.  So, for example, we can be built the electronics into a cap (glove or shoe) and you don’t need to use your hands to control your car.

By mounting the black box into a cap individuals with severe upper limb trauma or lost upper limbs or restricted movements in their hands, can use simple head movement to control their racing car.

The idea was originally developed by Mark whilst working at the local university.  The first system was made for a young lad that had been paralysed after a road accident.  Almost immediately he found he could "drive" his racing car using head movements. This helped to boost his confidence and helped his general condition to improve.

Recently Mark and I go together and became enthusiastic about making this technology more broadly available.  This blog is about our experiences in turning Dream-Racer into a small business that support less advantaged individuals.

Now it’s your turn to give it a go

Here’s your chance: if you are a teacher at a UK school for children (8-15 years) with special educationals needs and would like to see if Dream-Racer could help them to learn new skills please get in touch.

We have built five sets (caps and cars) that we are using for demos and trials.  E-mail me if you would like to try Dream-Racer with you pupils. My e-mail address is: michael@dream-racer.com

If your school is in the West Midlands I’ll bring it along and you can keep it for a week or so.

Mike

I’m trying-out the "Windows Live Writer" today to add entries to this blog mainly because I wanted to do stuff off-line and upload it when it was more convenient.  Also seems like a better idea than sitting at my desk all the time.

This should make it a bit easier – eh, when you have a wireless laptop you may as well make the most of it …

The good news is that we are making good progress on the business model.  Although, sometimes it seems like two steps forwards and three back.

Over the last few days Sarah has been working on some logo ideas we will be able to transfer to caps, shirts, bags etc so I thought it would be good to show off one of the ideas.

Tomorrow I’ll be adding a web page to the Excitim site to show how Dream-Racer will work.

If you like the way this blog is developing why not bookmark it and check back in a few days.

Mike