Engineering to enhance human mobility, play, and exploration
Congratulations to Brianna Goodwin! She placed third in the Masters Student Paper Competition at the 2019 Summer Biomechanics, Bioengineering, & Biotransport Conference. Brianna presented her MS research using accelerometers to track arm movement for kids with cerebral palsy who were receiving constraint induced movement therapy at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Brianna completed her MS in June 2018. She is currently working at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Congrats Brianna!
Congrats to Brandon Nguyen who was awarded the Best Student Poster award by the International Society of Prosthetics & Orthotics Canada at RehabWeek in Toronto this past week! Brandon presented his work, “Accuracy and repeatability of using smartphone sensors for orthotic tuning.”
Check out his abstract and poster.
You can also download the HuskySTEPS app to try it out yourself.
This work, in collaboration with Nick Baicoianu and Darrin Howell, examined the accuracy of measuring shank-to-vertical angle during walking with a smartphone compared to traditional motion capture systems. Shank-to-vertical angle is a measure used by orthotists and therapists for AFO tuning and gait training. The short story – placing the smartphone on the front of the shank can measure shank-vertical-angle with errors less than two degrees compared to traditional motion capture systems, with high intra-rater and inter-rater repeatability across days.
Brandon also recently finished his Doctorate of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree at the University of Washington – making him one of the rare engineer-therapists. In recognition of his efforts to combine academic scholarship with social awareness and concern, he was awarded the 2019 UW Graduate Medal.
Congratulations Brandon! We are so excited to see what you do next.
Dr. Kat Steele and lab alumni, Dr. Heather Feldner, were on the The Accessible Technologies & Inclusive Design Panel at the IdeaGen Global Innovation Summit hosted by Micrsofot on June 7, 2019. Scott Saponas served as the moderator, asking tough questions about how to encourage and expand inclusive design. A large portion of the summit celebrated the increasing inclusion of women in tech and entrepreneurial fields, while also highlighting the remaining barriers and challenges. We hope our panel also sparked reflection on ability as an important dimension of diversity that has important implications for the design and engineering of inclusive products, environments, and experiences.
The panel also included Dr. Jacob Wobbrock from UW and Oscar Murillo from Microsoft. This was another reminder of the powerhouse of accessibility researchers at UW and in the Seattle-area. An artist was capturing the summit through illustration – the whole day (it looked amazing and exhausting):
One of the challenging questions Scott asked was our favorite examples of successful inclusive design. I still find it disappointing that this is a challenging question. We have our classic examples – curb cuts, closed captioning, power toothbrushes, Oxo products – that have made life easier for many, but were originally conceptualized through the inclusion of individuals with diverse abilities.
There should be many more examples of success. This should be an easy question where we can quickly call to mind all of the outstanding examples in the world that celebrate the inclusion of individuals with diverse abilities in the design process and make our daily life more inclusive.
What are your favorite examples of inclusive design?
What technologies make you excited for a more inclusive world?
You can learn more, find resources, and join the community through AccessEngineering.
The fancy graphic from IdeaGen for serving on the panel.
Walking takes energy – but for kids with cerebral palsy, walking can be exhausting. The average child with cerebral palsy consumes two times the amount of energy during walking compared to typically-developing peers – that is the equivalent of jogging or climbing stairs!
The reasons for why walking takes so much energy for children with cerebral palsy remains largely unknown. The extra muscle activity caused by spasticity has often been theorized as a large contributing factor. If this was true, we would expect that treatments that reduce spasticity, like selective dorsal rhizotomy, could dramatically reduce energy during walking.
Led by Nicole Zaino, a new PhD student in the lab, and our collaborator Mike Schwartz at Gillette Children’s Specialty we have been investigating this question. By analyzing energy consumption for children with cerebral palsy who underwent rhizotomy and matched peers with cerebral palsy, we were determined that reducing spasticity does not lead to dramatic decreases in energy consumption.
This research has been nominated as a finalist for two awards at the International Society of Biomechanics Conference. This work was selected as one of 5 finalist for the Clinical Biomechanics Award. Nicole will also present as one of the finalists for the David Winter Young Investigator Award. The final awards will be announced at the conference in Calgary the first week of August. Good luck Nicole!
You can learn more about the study and read the preprint on BioRxiv:
Today we all headed over to the HUB to celebrate one of our awesome research scientists, Keshia Peters.
Keshia was nominated for the University of Washington Distinguished Staff Award – the staff award for the whole university!
While we got to enjoy cupcakes, lemonade, and practice our silent standing wave this celebration honored all nominees. We have to wait a few weeks for the final awardees to be announced. Good luck Keshia and thanks for all you do for the lab!