DIY Light Up Cane!
Friday, October 18, 2019
By Jen Mullins, BS, CTRS, MATP Staff
Recently, I got to meet and talk with Alisa Grishman of Access Mob Pittsburgh (AMP). Alisa is the inventor of the “Light Up Cane”; although she says that she’s not an inventor and just “had a good idea”. Sure sounds like an inventor to me! The Light Up Cane is essentially a cane that has a string of small lights and a small power bank attached to it.
Alisa’s idea came about while she attended an outdoor, nighttime concert. Using her cane, she was trying to make her way to the bathroom and no one could see her, so she kept getting knocked around. She made her way to one of the vendors where she bought a string of fairy lights & a power bank. She wrapped the lights & power bank around her cane and secured them with tape. When she walked somewhere during the concert, she could be seen and safe. Since the concert, Alisa and AMP has partnered with HackPittsburgh to do safety lighting installations on people’s power chairs and have other ideas in the works for illuminating AT for safety.
If you’d like to make your own light up cane or wheelchair or other illuminated AT device, AMP has recommended these lights. Additionally, small fairy lights are available and as well as small power banks. To secure the lights & power bank, Alisa & AMP used blue painters tape (less likely to leave stickiness on your device if you needed to remove it).
Sometimes the best inventions are born out of necessity. 🙂