Equality Gate - speculative design

A fun third year University project tasked with creating an installation in relation to commuting. As I'm interested in the social model of disability we used this as the basis of our project.

We came up with Equality Gate, a speculative train station gate that hinders those without a disability, causing inconvenience, making their daily commute more difficult. Unless someone has a disability rail pass, they will be stopped from entering the gate until they have listened to a fact on the difficulties of commuting with a disability. The installation provoked discussion on the topic.

The voice for the gate was spoken by Comedy Writer and Celebrity Voiceover Emma Clarke.

We used an arduino micro controller, coded to open to open the gate (using servo motors) without a delay using an active sensor and an RFID chip for those with a disability pass card. Those without a disability card were held back from passing through with a 5 second delay, while a fact on travelling with a disability was played to them.

The gate structure is made from painted MDF and acrylic sheet, the doors from CNC cut craft foam and the sensor casing is 3D printed PLA.