Abstract:

While during the last years universities have been embracing digital fabrication technologies in engineering, design and architecture departments, there remains a lack of provision for the students with special needs. The premise for our work is to provide these technologies amongst the disabled students at the university. We believe that it is necessary to provide them with these skills in order to be competitive in the job market as well as to have access to the same opportunities as other students. This paper describes a case study deployed at Fab Lab Madrid CEU, the digital fabrication laboratory based at CEU University. It targets the use of augmented reality and digital fabrication technologies as support tools for students with disabilities to teach universal design in the college classroom.

Augmented reality can be viewed as an assistive technology, due to its potential to minimize the effects of a disability and provide an alternative means to accomplish a particular task. It also helps in social interaction and communication. Digital fabrication laboratories place an emphasis on the social aspects of the space and benefits from these environments on students with disabilities are proved. Fab Lab users build confidence and engage with other people while developing technical skills. The case study also shows the benefits of the NEWTON platform, an innovative tool that integrate both technologies, allowing students remote access to digital fabrication machines. It enables content reuse, supports generation of new material and content exchange among students, encouraging new innovative pedagogical approaches and allowing the inclusion of students with disabilities.

Keywords:

Fab Lab, augmented reality, digital fabrication, disabilities.