SBIR Phase I: Promoting STEM Education for Students Who are Blind or Print Disabled Through the Development of the First Talking Pocket Size Scientific Data Collection Device

SBIR 第一阶段：通过开发首款会说话的袖珍科学数据收集设备，促进盲人或印刷品阅读障碍学生的 STEM 教育

• 批准号: 0945481
• 负责人: Cary Supalo
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Independence Science, LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-01-01 至 2010-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0945481&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Promoting; STEM; Education

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a system to provide text-to-speech capabilities for a vital and popular scientific device thus providing non-visual operating capacity for such a device, an essential feature for blind/print disabled students. The proposed activity is a collaborative venture between a well established educational company, a large research university, and a company that specializes in increasing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) accessibility for blind/print disabled students. The research addresses advancing state-of-the-art educational technologies and will provide insights into topical issues concerning STEM education and careers.The proposed project addresses this goal by promoting STEM to students with print disabilities via a technology that will increase hands-on accessibility during science education. Students with print disabilities are under-represented in STEM careers. Insufficient hands-on science learning experiences could underlie this under-representation and will be investigated as a possible factor. Understanding such factors could facilitate development of additional technologies and strategies for increasing STEM representation, thus furthering NSF goals. The project will result in a marketable product, and based on an analysis of competitive and alternative technologies, will be in a positive position in the competitive landscape. Commercial benefits of the project involve the creation of employment opportunities in a STEM based educational company focused on increasing accessibility. In addition, this technology can be used both in the laboratory and in the home use. Potential home applications are temperature tracking of food items, GPS navigation, and pH detection for swimming pools. Finally, the innovation will enable data collection without sight or light. Many experiments require dark or low light conditions and the innovation will be instrumental for developing technologies for these experiments and in enabling future discoveries.

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将开发一个系统，为一种重要和流行的科学设备提供文本到语音的功能，从而为这种设备提供非视觉操作能力，这是盲人/有阅读障碍的学生的基本特征。拟议中的活动是一家成熟的教育公司、一所大型研究型大学和一家专门为盲人/阅读障碍学生增加科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）可及性的公司之间的合作项目。该研究涉及先进的教育技术，并将提供有关STEM教育和职业的主题问题的见解。拟议的项目通过一种技术向有阅读障碍的学生推广STEM来实现这一目标，这种技术将增加科学教育过程中的动手能力。有阅读障碍的学生在STEM职业中代表性不足。缺乏实际的科学学习经验可能是这种代表性不足的基础，并将作为一个可能的因素进行调查。了解这些因素可以促进开发更多的技术和策略，以增加STEM的代表性，从而进一步实现NSF的目标。该项目将产生可销售的产品，并根据对竞争和替代技术的分析，将在竞争格局中处于积极地位。该项目的商业效益包括在一家专注于提高可及性的STEM教育公司创造就业机会。此外，这项技术既可以在实验室使用，也可以在家庭使用。潜在的家庭应用包括食品的温度跟踪、GPS导航和游泳池的pH值检测。最后，这项创新将使数据收集没有视觉或光线。许多实验需要黑暗或弱光条件，创新将有助于开发这些实验的技术，并使未来的发现成为可能。