Outreach

NSF Convergence Accelerator | Living Better through Rehabilitation & Assistive Technology

Dr. Steele AccessEngineering, Outreach, Presentation , , , ,

A second NSF Convergence Accelerator focused on increasing access and inclusion. The LIBERATE workshop is focused on Living Better through Rehabilitation & Assistive Technology.

title slide of Dr. Steele's presentation on a purple background with text Liberate 2021 NSF convergence accelerator

As an NSF Convergence Accelerator, participants will seek to identify pathways that could be  pursued by multidisciplinary teams to get solutions at least to a prototype stage in 3-5 years. The long-term goal from this workshop is to kickstart the next wave of technologies that will empower people with disabilities.

Dr. Steele will be participating and presenting some kernels of ideas for inclusion, especially highlighting recent work from CREATE.

Slides

Download PDF of slides.

Email Dr. Steele (kmsteele – at – uw – dot – edu) with questions, comments, or suggestions.

HuskyADAPT… adapts!

Elijah HuskyADAPT, News, Outreach

Boxes of of many different colorful toysForegroud: woman wearing clear glasses smiling behind mask. Background: woman holding toy smiling behind mask next to car

Many University of Washington Mechanical Engineering student clubs had to think outside the (toy)box and overcome disruptions caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic, but few have adapted as well as HuskyADAPT lead by the SteeleLab’s very own Alyssa Spomer and Nicole Zaino.

This year they pivoted to have virtual workshops to continue providing students with hands-on-experience modifying toys, and contactless donation events to keep up the distribution of free adapted toys throughout western Washington.

Way to go Alyssa, Nicole, and all HuskyADAPTers! Keep it up!

2020 Center for Translational Muscle Research

Dr. Steele MotorControl, Orthoses, Outreach, Presentation , , , , ,

How can we decipher human movement?

CTMR: White text on purple background, UW Center for Translational Muscle ResearchOur skeletal muscles have amazing structure. They provide elegant and efficient actuation to move and explore our worlds. But how do we understand how muscles produce movement?

Dr. Steele presents at the inaugural research symposium for the University of Washington Center for Translational Muscle Research. Her presentation shares examples for how we can use musculoskeletal simulation as a tool to connect muscle biology, dynamics, and mobility.

Slides | Transcript

HuskyADAPT toy hackathon event with Microsoft

Elijah HuskyADAPT, News, Outreach, Projects

Younger woman in purple giving a presentation on two projection screens in a design space while a many others wearing green shirts look on Several people, two in green shirts and one in a black shirt, listen to a young gentleman in a gray jacket as he talks about the toys in front of him

Alyssa Spomer along with HuskyADAPT (Accessible Design & Play Technology) hosted the first-ever adapted toy Hackathon with Microsoft. The event combined design and toy adaptation, as teams of HuskyADAPT students and Microsoft employees worked together to adapt toys and develop new designs for adapted toy switches and switch mounts.

Groups of people sitting around wooden tables with parts strewn about, many of them wearing greens shirts, with a younger gentleman writing on a white board with another gentleman smiling at the table and examining what he is writing  A woman wearing a orange jackets and black shirt and a man wearing a green shirt smiling while holding a toy in front of a workshop

Over 25 Microsoft employees joined 20 students, including the Steele Lab’s own Alyssa Spomer, Nicole Zaino, Charlotte Caskey, and Elijah Kuska, in the CoMotion MakerSpace for this community-focused and adaptive driven workshop.

Large group of individuals smiling in a workshop while holding toys

During the day-long hackathon, over 20 toys were adapted to incorporate a new switch mechanism to facilitate play and several new inexpensive switches, toy-type converters, and switch mounting systems were designed and prototyped.  Thank you to the Microsoft employees, for their willingness and commitment to assist those in need, the CoMotion MakerSpace volunteers, for allowing us to use their space, and our HuskyADAPT team and lab members, for their dedication to outreach events.