On the first reading day of every year, visually impaired children from across the state come to campus for a day of fun.
Gary Bishop, a computer science professor at UNC, has organized the event every year since 2005.
His first-year seminar, Enabling Technologies, teaches students about different disabilities and how to use technology with disabled people.
For the final project in the class, students create a project, game or activity that works with visually impaired students, then at the end of the year, visually impaired students are invited to come participate in the activities for a day called Maze Day.
“In 2005, the first year, some of the students in my class created a project about mazes and wanted children to come try it out,” Bishop said.
They invited children to UNC and thought they could run through the maze in the hour before class ended, but Bishop knew it wasn’t possible.
So he canceled class, and the first Maze Day was thrown together.
“It was a great time, and everyone was asking, ‘So when are we going to do this next year?’” said Bishop.
Since that day, Maze Day has become a tradition, and they now host a big maze as well as more than 30 other activities and invite visually impaired students from kindergarten through 12th grade.
“Teachers of students who are visually impaired have a mailing list, so we advertise and they come from all over the state and even adjoining states,” Bishop said.
This year, Maze Day will be hosted on Monday, April 29 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and there will be about 100 children and 70 adults as well as volunteers and students from UNC in attendance.
Even students who previously participated in a Maze Day and have now graduated are coming back for this year’s event.
One of the students in Bishop’s Enabling Technologies class this year, Scottie Taylor, said he chose this class because he was interested in the service learning aspect, as his grandfather was very involved in community service work and the manager of his tennis team in high school was disabled.
“For our final project, my group made Goal Ball, which is like soccer, and there is a beeping ball that they roll across the floor, and the kids are goalies,” he said.
“They’ll have a blast — they get to interact with a bunch of college students, athletes and just have a full day of fun,” Taylor said.
Olivia Horton, another student in the class, said her group programmed a video game where the students get to pick a hero character and take on that character’s role.
“This is special because they don’t have a chance to go to an event made specifically for them, and we are making this whole event geared straight toward people who are blind,” she said.
Burns Beaver, another student in the seminar helping out with Maze Day, said out of everything they’ve done this year, Maze Day is what Bishop is most passionate about.
“A lot of people are really excited, and it if goes well, I’d be more than happy to come back next year to help out,” Beaver said.
Bishop is excited for the event on Monday.
“People love it,” he said. “I’ve had teachers tell me this is the first time they saw this child smile.”
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