UW Together – Featured Project

Here at the Ability & Innovation Lab we are fortunate to partner with amazing families and people who are our user experts for feedback and ideas when creating new devices and designs. Jayna and her family are fantastic partners in the design project for Jayna, alongside our undergraduate students. The second prototype is now underway to improve the comfort, donning and doffing, and applicability of Jayna’s elbow-driven device to enable the use of her left arm during two handed tasks.

UW Together presents Jayna’s story HERE.

Jayna and Bradley work on bi-manual tasks (two-handed) during Jayna's visit to the Ability and Innovation Lab

Engineering Discovery Days

Our lab had a great time sharing our research at the College of Engineering Discovery Days. Our booth was entitled, “The Ultimate Machine” because we think of the human body as a complex system with our brain as a controller/computer and our muscles as our motors. Elementary and middle school students used their neural pathway, from brain to muscle, to control a robot gripper by either relaxing or activating their muscle.  A student activates his muscle to hold a golf ball with a robot gripper Our lab director, Kat Steele, explains why ankle foot orthoses are used and what we are doing to optimize the device. Another student tries her luck at holding a golf ball with a robot hand. The record hold time was 170 seconds. A group of students cheer on their peer as he activates his muscle to hold a golf ball with a robot gripper Elementary and middle school aged students try on 3D printed prosthetic devices