The Guardian’s DG McCullough highlights MIT’s Open Style Lab, which merges design, engineering and occupational therapy to create clothes for people with disabilities, and the International Design Center, which creates clothes with “fewer sensory triggers such as fraying, rough zippers and scratchy tags children and adults with autism because of their sensitivity to certain textures and colors.”
Researchers at the MIT Open Style Lab are creating products for people with disabilities in an attempt to fill a void in the clothing industry, writes Dana Guth for Boston Magazine. “More people suffer from these problems than you would ever realize looking at the market,” says Grace Jun, the lab’s executive director.
Michelle Miller reports for CBS This Morning that Rendever, an MIT startup, is developing customized virtual reality experiences for senior citizens. Miller explains that the company is working “towards a future where the physical limitations many seniors face won’t prevent them from attending, say, a granddaughter’s wedding. They’ll be able to travel virtually.”
Grace Jun, education director of MIT’s Open Style Lab, speaks to Marisa Dellatto of The Boston Globe about the lab’s work developing clothes designed to empower individuals with unique needs and their fashion show at the MIT Museum. Jun says she was inspired to develop inclusive clothing designs when she saw the potential wearable tech had to help people.
MIT alumna Tish Scolnik speaks with Forbes reporter Susan Adams about her startup, Global Research Innovation and Technology, which develops wheelchairs for rough terrain. Scolnik recalls that she was inspired to develop wheelchairs in an MIT course. “I thought the class would hit my interest and give me an opportunity to understand what engineering was all about.”
ABC News visits Prof. Hugh Herr’s lab to explore his work developing bionic limbs aimed at augmenting human capabilities and ending “profound human suffering caused by disability.” Herr says he “always had the dream of developing exoskeletal structures that would enable anyone to walk with less energy, run with less energy, move faster with complete ease.”
In an article for The Atlantic, Jessa Gamble highlights MIT alumnus David Sengeh’s work, which is focused on designing better-fitting prosthetics by examining a patient’s internal anatomy using MRI technology. “We’ve been able to make the [world’s] first socket entirely from quantitative methods,” says Sengeh. “No human hands were involved in defining the shape, including the cut lines and material properties of the socket.”
Space.com reporter Samantha Mathewson writes that MIT researchers have developed a vibrating boot to help astronauts avoid obstacles. Prof. Leia Stirling explains that she hopes the boot will make astronauts “more confident and efficient during extravehicular activities and may decrease their injury risk due to trips and falls.”
Samantha Cole writes for Popular Science that researchers from MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics are developing boots that pulse and vibrate to warn the wearer of nearby obstacles. Cole explains that the researchers see the technology “as valuable not only for space walks, but for firefighters, the elderly, or those with compromised sensory systems.”
In a Wall Street Journal article about designing clothing for people with disabilities, Christina Binkley highlights the MIT Open Style Lab. The program brings together students to create apparel for varying needs, including “flat seams that don’t irritate the skin of children with sensory disorders and rain coats that cover wheelchair users’ laps more effectively.”
Jon Christian reports for The Boston Globe on FitSocket, a device created by researchers in MIT’s Biomechatronics group that gathers data used to create personalized prosthetic sockets. “We’re treating the body as a mechanical thing, because it is,” explains graduate student Arthur Petron.
MIT students collaborated with residents of the Boston Home, a facility for adults with neurological diseases, to create InstaAid, an app that acts as a call button for nurses on the campus, writes Virgie Hoban for The Boston Globe. “The app preserves the independence of people contending with debilitating diseases," Hoban explains.
CNN reporter Lauriel Cleveland writes about the MIT Open Style Lab, which brings students together to design clothing for individuals with disabilities. "Dressing is such a basic and intimate need,” explains MIT graduate and Open Style Lab co-founder Grace Teo. “We hope to restore the independence and dignity of dressing to people with disabilities."
Trent Gillies writes for CNBC about how MIT researchers are developing wearable devices to aid the visually impaired. The research, which is funded by the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, “would help blind people, especially in cities, move around alone,” reports Gillies.
Nidhi Subbaraman of BetaBoston writes about the affordable wheelchair made out of bike parts developed by Prof. Amos Winter. Winter and his team have now created a second wheelchair that allows riders to “navigate ski slopes and bike trails.”