SIMON: Design engineer Ross is travelling to Hertfordshire.
ROSS: Hello, you must be Nicole.
NICOLE: Yeah, nice to meet you.
ROSS: Hi, Ayala.
NICOLE: This is Ayala.
SIMON: He's here to see single mum Nicole and her eight-year-old twins.
ROSS: Do we have a measuring cup?
CIARA: Yes, here.
ROSS: Okay.
SIMON: Ayala and Caira were born 15 weeks premature. They both had bleeds to the brain and holes in their hearts.
CIARA: And we need to be sensible.
ROSS: Yeah.
SIMON: Caira recovered, apart from a problem with her vocal chords.
CIARA: Today we are going to make a burger, and today we've already been starting to make it.
SIMON:鈥ut her sister has severe cerebral palsy.
NICOLE: Okay, well, shall we take her outside and then she's got space to walk?
AYALA: Walk!
SIMON: Cerebral palsy affects movement and coordination and can occur if a baby's brain doesn't develop normally in the womb or is damaged soon after birth. In the UK, it affects around one in 400 children.
AYALA: Caira?
CIARA: Yeah?
AYALA: Can I鈥 can I go round it?
SIMON: Ayala's a brainy, wonderful kid, but her condition's left her with little control of her body.
CIARA: [We could just go like鈥
ROSS: If you don't mind, can you, from the beginning, tell me what happened?
NICOLE: I went into hospital at 24 weeks and I had them at 25.
ROSS: How much did they weigh when they were born?
NICOLE: Um, Caira was 850 grams, so 1lb14, and Ayala was 800 grams, so 1lb12.
ROSS: So, when did you first find out that Ayala had cerebral palsy?
NICOLE: Er, when she was nine months old I went for what I thought was just a checkup appointment at the paediatricians, and she told me then that Ayala had cerebral palsy and that she'd never walk. I was 21, and I was like: I don't know what to do with two kids - let alone one that's gonna have a disability. I was just scared. I was petrified!
SIMON: Ayala has to rely on her mother and her sister to help with simple everyday tasks as she's unable to use her arms independently and has little control over her hands.
NICOLE: Not being able to walk and not being able to use your hands, but being so clever, because Ayala is SO clever, I just鈥'm just like, is there a worse combination? Because she knows exactly what she wants to do but she just cannot physically do it. So it's like she's literally trapped in her own body and there's nothing she can do about it.
ROSS: When she's playing with her sister, you don't want it to feel like her sister's playing and she's a spectator. No, because I mean, like, they are twins, and they are鈥 they do like the same stuff, and they are the same age, you know, like, so, when they are playing, I'm watching Caira doing one thing but Ayala will want her to do it another way, and then they end up arguing鈥
ROSS: It's a really tough position for both of them to be in, right?
NICOLE: Yeah, yeah.
NICOLE: Hi, girls.
SIMON: To figure out how to help the twins play together, Ross wants to know what their dream toy looks like.
ROSS: All right, we're gonna play a game. I'm gonna draw you the best toy ever and you've gotta tell me what it looks like.
AYALA: I wanna draw鈥 with my mouth.
ROSS: You wanna draw? She can draw it with her mouth if she wants.
CIARA: Hey, Ayala drawed on mine.
NICOLE: It doesn't matter, you'll get a new page. What is it?
AYALA: A fire engine.
ROSS: A fire engine?
CIARA: Yeah.
ROSS: Ah! Makes a lot of sense.
ROSS: Talking to Nicole about um鈥 about the birth of the twins and everything that she went through, just鈥ou know, it blew my mind. I guess I just can't imagine at 21鈥 And coming through it with the attitude that she has I think is absolutely amazing. I think our challenge is to create a way for them to play that doesn't increase the gap between them but reduces the gap between them. I really hope that we're able to create some things that DO allow her to do the things she wants to do more easily.
SIMON: At school, Ayala's able to navigate the corridors on her own, driving her wheelchair with buttons on her headrest.
ROSS: So, this thing spins round? When it's pointing in the direction you wanna go, you press the switch?
AYALA: Yeah.
ROSS: 360?
AYALA: Okay, can I hold your hand, Ross?
ROSS: Yeah, of course, Ayala.
AYALA: Okay.
ROSS: That will be great.
AYALA: There you go.
ROSS: I'm so impressed by your control of this wheelchair. Do you know who Lewis Hamilton is?
AYALA: No.
ROSS: Well, you're better than him.
ROSS: That single switch is a really good way for her to control things, and she can control things that move very quickly with that switch. And that seems like a really good model to use for other things that we might make that she's controlling. And I think, really, that's probably where I think we're gonna start with this fix.
ROSS: So we're about to get on a flight to China.
SIMON: On a business trip to China, Ross and Akram come across an army of robots, which gives them an idea.
ROSS: We've got ones that have arms and legs and walk like people. We've got, er, ones that have wheels. There are ones that walk and ones that roll.
SIMON: They think it might be possible to operate these robots with the same switches that Ayala uses to operate her wheelchair. Back in London, Ross reports back to the team.
ROSS: The reason that I got these robot toys is because Ayala's really good at driving her wheelchair.
RUBY: Mm-hmm.
ROSS: And so I thought if she can drive her wheelchair then she can drive some other stuff.
ALL: Ooh! Whoa!
AKRAM: Seriously?
FEMALE: Don't drive it off鈥
RUBY: Oh my goodness, it's too much!
ALL: Ahhhh.
ROSS: This is quite a simple one, but I've done a quick little app. It mimics the way that Ayala's wheelchair controller works.
FEMALE: So she's not hitting different buttons to go in different directions鈥?
ROSS: No, she's got one button that she touches with her head.
FEMALE: OK, right.
JUDE: These are like classic playground games of Catch-me-if-you-can, and Hide-and-Seek, and鈥
RUBY: Yeah, so if you had Ayala, Caira, and then they're both kind of doing things together, chasing each other or psyching each other out, yeah.
ROSS: It's always really amazing to work with this team. When they said, "Why don't we do this?" I was like, "Yeah, you're right, why don't we do that?" And that's always really, really helpful. And so in a way it's made the fix more difficult because it's kind of raised my level of ambition of what, er, the fix could be.
SIMON: Ross and Akram start work on a pair of robots: a fire engine for Ayala and an aeroplane for Caira, both built with 3D printers.
ROSS: It's gonna need 18 metres of filament because I'm gonna have to run this overnight.
ROSS: There's a bad sign here: the filament on the floor is still there, so it looks like it broke. A bit of a disappointment. I'm gonna start again. Heh, heh, heh! I've got a fire engine! Does it fit on the robot? Quiet nice, I think. You use a button to control a robot. If I press the button on forward the robot drives forward.
AKRAM: Woah!
ROSS: If I press it when it's going backwards the robot drives backwards. So, look at this, Akram.
SIMON: Next, they attempt to build another toy, inspired by Ayala's love of drawing.
ROSS: What I'm wondering is if we can make this drawing machine be switch accessible, so we've got a hell of a lot to do!
SIMON: Ross and Akram have bought a robotic drawing machine, but they need to find a way to modify the software so that Ayala can operate it with her head switch.
AKRAM: Looking good, looking good, looking鈥 Noooo!
AKRAM: It's one-thirty in the morning.
ROSS: Still quite a lot to do. A long, long night ahead.
SIMON: Ross has worked through the night, painstakingly completing his inventions for Ayala and Caira. He's created twin robots to enable the girls to play together as equals for the first time.
ROSS: And it's a鈥uarter to four!
AKRAM: Woo-hoo!
SIMON: So, Ross, it's a big day. How are you feeling?
ROSS: I'm feeling quite excited. I mean, there are a lot of moving parts to this fix and anything could break.
SIMON: Right.
ROSS: But, if it all works, I think it's gonna be wicked. Hello, Caira!
SIMON: Can we come in? Caira, how are you?
ALL: Three, two, one, open!
CIARA: Oh! Yes! Yes!
NICOLE: Oh my goodness!
ROSS: Actually, inside this fire engine is the robot.
AYALA: Why is that in there?
NICOLE: That is so cool.
ROSS: This is an app that we've made just for you. If I press the button鈥
NICOLE: That is genius.
ROSS: Go!
SIMON: 'Both girls can operate their robot cars via an app, with Ayala's connected to the switch she uses to drive her wheelchair.'
SIMON: Oh, that one.
AYALA: Yeah!
SIMON: Go.
CIARA: I'm escaping!
SIMON: All right.
NICOLE: Not the bubbles鈥
SIMON: The girls playing on a level playing field! Look, you've got the same controls for these incredible robots. Oh!
CIARA: Ayala?
AYALA: Yeah?
SIMON: 'Ross has one more surprise for the twins.'
SIMON: Wow! Yes!
ROSS: This is a robot drawing machine, and it's controlled by another app on your鈥 on your device, and Akram and I worked really hard on it, and I'm really pleased with it, and I hope you guys like it!
CIARA: Well done, Ross.
SIMON: Hah! Aw!
ROSS: Okay, yeah, press it.
NICOLE: Oh my God.
SIMON: Oh, my goodness.
ROSS: Right, and the yellow switch should be pen up and pen down. Do you wanna try?
SIMON: Wow, that is quite something, Ross.
NICOLE: I just think it is absolutely incredible!
ROSS: Red switch, red switch, Ayala.
SIMON: As well as giving her the ability to draw her own pictures, Ross has pre-programmed some designs especially for Ayala.
ROSS:鈥 closed eye with eyelashes. And now it's drawing a star. What's happening?
AYALA: It spells my name, A-y-a-l-a.
SIMON: You're drawing your name, you're signing your name!
CIARA: Oh my God!
SIMON: Look at that. That is brilliant.
Designer and engineer Ross Atkin designs twin robots for Ayala and her sister.
Follow the process as he researches and designs a new assistive technology.
Ross designs two robots, one that Ayala can operate using head switches on her wheelchair, the other, her sister Caira operates using an identical hand held switch.
He also builds Ayala a mechanical drawing machine and a bespoke App to control it.
Ayala and her twin Caira, both 8, were born prematurely at 25 weeks, with severe bleeds on the brain and holes in their hearts.
Caira developed into an able bodied child with vocal cord paralysis 鈥 which results in her having a husk in her voice, and Ayala has cerebral palsy.
Can the team find a way for the girls to play together on an equal footing?
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