The Martlet

Beyond the challenges disabled individuals face in dealing with everyday tasks, like cooking, cleaning, transportation and computer use, there are also the challenges of more meaningful activities like playing sports, or creating works of art.

For those working at CanAssist, a UVic-based organization that develops technologies for people with special needs, helping people overcome these sorts of challenges is just another day on the job.

CanAssist’s Brandon Fry, a mechanical design specialist, and software developer Peter McGuire were faced with the challenge of creating a device to help an individual with the use of one arm play the guitar.

McGuire says CanAssist devises solutions for disabled individuals’ needs if none can be found elsewhere, “and then we make things like this guitar strummer.”

What is unofficially dubbed the “CanAssist Lap Steel Guitar Strummer” is a metallic, box-shaped mechanical device that sits atop a steel guitar, and strums the strings mechanically via the push of a button.

The strummer was initially designed by a UVic co-op student, but completed by Fry and McGuire. Although the client was primarily looking for a way to be able to play a standard guitar, the challenges in creating such a device led him to suggest they instead create something for him to be able to play the lap steel guitar.

Fry and McGuire were able to clarify the client’s needs by consulting with his assistant, who was also his music teacher.

“When we started the project, we laid down the ground rules, like ‘What are we actually going to be making?’ And we make sure the client knows exactly what we’re going to be doing,” explains Fry.

A remote control activates a belt inside the strummer with three plastic guitar picks attached to it, which quickly strum the steel’s strings at the push of a button. With the strummer, the client can also create and save different strumming patterns, which can then be played back at different tempos.

Another feature the strummer’s remote control will have is a squeeze switch for the client’s clenched left hand (the hand he is “strumming” with). This will help in providing physical therapy for the client’s hand as he plays.

Another feature of the strummer that will suit the client’s needs, says McGuire, is it simply looks cool.

“He was happy about the way it looks as well; we just recently got it chromed, and there was a lot of effort into making this look kind of fancy, kind of cool,” says McGuire. “So when he’s playing it, it doesn’t look like he has this huge industrial thing sticking on his guitar.”

While Fry, a musician himself, says that from the viewpoint of an experienced musician, the strummer does have its limitations, he also feels that a new musician would likely approach the strummer with a sense of wonder, finding ways to create music that transcends the device’s limitations.

“[For] someone who has not previously had the ability to play an instrument, or even think about it, it might be something that’s completely life changing.”