Makers Making Change

08/07/2025

Worlds UNBound is a STEM outreach program that runs out of the UNB Faculty of Engineering and reaches over 13,000 youth across the province annually through in-school clubs, workshops, camps, and special events. With help from funding from the Clubs That Care initiative of Neil Squire's Makers Making Change program, the team at Worlds UNBound have been engaging their summer camp participants in assistive device builds, allowing students to get hands-on STEM learning opportunities all while making a difference in the lives of people with disabilities in their community.

“Hands-on experience is essential for students. You can talk to them all day long and it won't get the point across the same way that getting their hands on a soldering iron and seeing that solder smoke and making that connection in the circuit. No words or pictures will top that,” says Clubs That Care youth leader Skye, a recent biomedical and electrical engineering graduate at UNB. Her job as the Engineering Outreach Coordinator for the Faculty of Engineering includes running Worlds UNBound.

As a Clubs That Care youth leader, Skye was able to use her micro-grant to purchase a 3D printer, soldering tools, and event materials for use with the Worlds UNBound camps.

Read more: https://www.makersmakingchange.com/s/managed-content-news/clubs-that-care-helps-worlds-unbound-teach-hands-on-stem-skills-while-helping-pe-MCBA2EQCYJ2FDH7D47FAINBMM3NQ

08/06/2025

08/05/2025

07/31/2025

A great article on the West Park Healthcare Centre's adaptive gaming program and the impact gaming can have for people with disabilities. West Park is one of our GAME Checkpoints, and we are proud to support their adaptive gaming program.

07/29/2025

Our friends at the Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation, one of our GAME Checkpoints, were recently interviewed on The SwagAbility Show, discussing adaptive gaming and all things assistive technology. There’s even some great discussion on our work and the GAME Checkpoints initiative.

Welcome to the Swagability Show, where we spotlight stories of courage, creativity, and community. Today we're diving into assistive technology Stay tuned to...

07/24/2025

Earlier this month, the Ryan Vancouver office raised funds and helped us adapt toys and switches for kids with disabilities as part of their annual Ryan Shares Day of community giving.

In all, the Ryan employees built 32 switches and adapted 22 toys, all of which will be donated to Canadian families and clinicians, ensuring kids with disabilities can play independently.

Way to go, Ryan Vancouver!

07/22/2025

Did you know that Tech OWL - Technology for Our Whole Lives and Makers Making Change have designed an amazing range of 3D printed items to make life easier and more accessible for those with disabilities? They support not only people across the USA and Canada with these designs but across the world - by making the 3D designs available to all. At Conductive Education Bristol we have printed and are trying out a range of the pen grips to enable our young people to develop their independent creativity :)

https://techowlpa.org/maker-catalog/

Could one of their 3D printed designs help you or a child/adult you know? If you need help printing any of these designs please get in touch x

07/15/2025

Our team leads from across Canada are at our Burnaby Head Office this week for a planning and strategy session.

07/11/2025

Recently, we’ve welcomed aboard a number of new members — Kris, Samantha, Jorene, Grace, Yasmeen, Emily, and Heather (left to right, top to bottom) — to our team to help us out with outreach, events, and projects. Take a moment to meet the new faces at Makers Making Change: https://ow.ly/Ejbt50Wox6X

07/03/2025

Wow! We are blown away by the creative assistive technology designs in this year's ! It's always an honour to be a partner for the challenge and be part of the judging panel.

Congratulations to the winning teams!

06/26/2025

Jaxon has always been interested in technology, whether it be computers or experimenting with Arduino boards. His other passion is helping people, so much so that he even tried making his own business when he was younger to help seniors with their technology needs — he learned coding building a website for the business.

So, when Neil Squire’s Makers Making Change program began recruiting youth leaders for its Clubs That Care initiative, it only made sense for the Grade 10 student to answer the call.

“It's the exact sort of thing that's right up my alley,” he says.

Jaxon had already been volunteering with Makers Making Change since taking part in our Holiday Hackathon last November. Now as a Clubs That Care leader, he has been leading student volunteers at his school in building assistive devices for people with disabilities.

Read more: https://www.makersmakingchange.com/s/managed-content-news/jaxon-leads-student-volunteers-for-clubs-that-care-MCJX5ZGKLHNRG4HPKGHLJC33WXKU

06/25/2025

MMC Live is a monthly live stream where we will share resources and projects, exciting updates in our community, and much more. Each month, the live stream will focus on updates from our regional coordinators, accessible gaming team, or R&D team.

Today, Jake McIvor and Brad Wellington from our research and development team will give you a look at some of our newest (and upcoming) devices — including the Chatterbox and adaptive utensil holders — as well as share resources on switch interfaces and updating firmware for the LipSync. Stay tuned until the end for a handy Open AT design tip.