As some of you know, I lost most of my sight in 2012 to Type 1 diabetes and diabetic retinopathy. I have regained some sight in my right eye, but my left eye is still gone. I have been able to get back behind the transmitter now that I can see large slow moving objects and that has been awesome. I have also been able to work on my rigs again thanks to the great advice that I received from you guys and the aid of some awesome Cow RC work mats. They make it really easy to see parts that I drop without having to resort to the "clean the entire shop and hope for the best" method. I cannot say thank you enough to all those who helped me along the way.
Now that the back story is out of the way, I'll explain what is going on now. I discovered that I am not the only one with vision problems who enjoys the RC hobby. I have received messages from members here and on other forums from people who have visual impairments ranging from macular degeneration to narrow visual field. It got me thinking that if RC has helped me train my eyes to work better (not great, but better) then maybe I can pass that information along and help others. My adopted younger brother is legally blind from birth and he was test subject #1 and I took him out with the SCX10 and gave him a crash course on driving it. He has driven smaller toy grade RC's before so he took to it pretty quick. I had to keep on my toes to keep him from falling over anything on the trail but he had a blast. He asked me after running all 6 packs that we had with us when we were going to do it again. He had a blast and by the end of the day had become more confident in where to walk and position himself to see the truck the best and required less and less help. It is amazing the difference that a day on the trail with a "toy" has made in him.
My youngest brother (also adopted) is autistic and is very socially withdrawn. We brought him with us while I helped a friend break in a nitro engine and the sound really caught his attention. He got very excited about the sound and watching the car blast around the parking lot kept a smile on his face. It made me think that maybe RC could be helpful here too. The next time I took the crawlers out, I took him with me and tried him out with a radio. He struggled with holding the radio and focusing his attention on how operating the radio corresponded to the truck moving but eventually he got the hang of it. I helped him hold the radio and did a hand over hand method of teaching him what to do but he couldn't have been happier. He was actually focusing on a task for more that 15 seconds at a time! It was an amazing breakthrough.
Seeing how much this helped them made me think that I could help more people if I thought bigger. My younger brother attends a school for the deaf and blind here in WV and I spoke to the school administrators about talking to the kids about RC. My brother had told his friends and teachers about getting to drive the truck and they were interested to learn more. I brought a bunch of magazines for the teachers and did a demo for the kids. I let everyone that wanted to drive have a turn and most really loved it. It is something that we are going to doing a lot more of in the spring. I brought my Stampede 4x4, Slash 4x4 and SCx10 and we ran for more than two hours, almost non-stop. Anyone with kids knows how hard it is to keep a group of 5-13 yr. olds attention for any length of time but these kids were genuinely interested in what was going on. We put the two "fast" trucks in training mode and they took turns blasting around the field where we were set up. The kids mostly took to the concept of using the transmitter pretty well, but we had three kids who are left handed and they had a really difficult time adapting to using a right handed transmitter. They tried holding it upside down, on its side but finally had to turn it around backwards and operated it with the wheel facing away from them. This was a little awkward to watch but more importantly made the kids feel "different" than those whe could use the transmitter in a normal fashion.
In order to continue this program and possibly even grow it, we are going to need support. I am asking for anything that we can use to help these kids out. I am currently trying to find a radio that we can set up just for lefties to use so this doesn't happen in the future. We go through quite a bit of parts (the trucks are tough but there's only so many full throttle impacts with solid objects a vehicle can take) but that is one of the reasons that we chose the Stampede and Slash 4x4 since they share a ton of parts. I donated the trucks (my SCX is on loan currently) but keeping up with the parts to fix them is getting expensive. I don't charge the school or the kids anything for the program and I never will; getting to help these kids learn new skills and have a great time is all the payment I will ever need. If there is anything that you all as community can do to help us out, we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you all so much for the advice and support, you have no idea how much it means to us!
Now that the back story is out of the way, I'll explain what is going on now. I discovered that I am not the only one with vision problems who enjoys the RC hobby. I have received messages from members here and on other forums from people who have visual impairments ranging from macular degeneration to narrow visual field. It got me thinking that if RC has helped me train my eyes to work better (not great, but better) then maybe I can pass that information along and help others. My adopted younger brother is legally blind from birth and he was test subject #1 and I took him out with the SCX10 and gave him a crash course on driving it. He has driven smaller toy grade RC's before so he took to it pretty quick. I had to keep on my toes to keep him from falling over anything on the trail but he had a blast. He asked me after running all 6 packs that we had with us when we were going to do it again. He had a blast and by the end of the day had become more confident in where to walk and position himself to see the truck the best and required less and less help. It is amazing the difference that a day on the trail with a "toy" has made in him.
My youngest brother (also adopted) is autistic and is very socially withdrawn. We brought him with us while I helped a friend break in a nitro engine and the sound really caught his attention. He got very excited about the sound and watching the car blast around the parking lot kept a smile on his face. It made me think that maybe RC could be helpful here too. The next time I took the crawlers out, I took him with me and tried him out with a radio. He struggled with holding the radio and focusing his attention on how operating the radio corresponded to the truck moving but eventually he got the hang of it. I helped him hold the radio and did a hand over hand method of teaching him what to do but he couldn't have been happier. He was actually focusing on a task for more that 15 seconds at a time! It was an amazing breakthrough.
Seeing how much this helped them made me think that I could help more people if I thought bigger. My younger brother attends a school for the deaf and blind here in WV and I spoke to the school administrators about talking to the kids about RC. My brother had told his friends and teachers about getting to drive the truck and they were interested to learn more. I brought a bunch of magazines for the teachers and did a demo for the kids. I let everyone that wanted to drive have a turn and most really loved it. It is something that we are going to doing a lot more of in the spring. I brought my Stampede 4x4, Slash 4x4 and SCx10 and we ran for more than two hours, almost non-stop. Anyone with kids knows how hard it is to keep a group of 5-13 yr. olds attention for any length of time but these kids were genuinely interested in what was going on. We put the two "fast" trucks in training mode and they took turns blasting around the field where we were set up. The kids mostly took to the concept of using the transmitter pretty well, but we had three kids who are left handed and they had a really difficult time adapting to using a right handed transmitter. They tried holding it upside down, on its side but finally had to turn it around backwards and operated it with the wheel facing away from them. This was a little awkward to watch but more importantly made the kids feel "different" than those whe could use the transmitter in a normal fashion.
In order to continue this program and possibly even grow it, we are going to need support. I am asking for anything that we can use to help these kids out. I am currently trying to find a radio that we can set up just for lefties to use so this doesn't happen in the future. We go through quite a bit of parts (the trucks are tough but there's only so many full throttle impacts with solid objects a vehicle can take) but that is one of the reasons that we chose the Stampede and Slash 4x4 since they share a ton of parts. I donated the trucks (my SCX is on loan currently) but keeping up with the parts to fix them is getting expensive. I don't charge the school or the kids anything for the program and I never will; getting to help these kids learn new skills and have a great time is all the payment I will ever need. If there is anything that you all as community can do to help us out, we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you all so much for the advice and support, you have no idea how much it means to us!
