Design innovation then/now: Spotlight on assistive technology
In celebration of UC Berkeley’s 150th birthday, we’re exploring Berkeley-driven design innovation from 1868 to today. Over the course of the year, we’ll take a look at researchers, creators, and makers who have been part of Berkeley’s “perpetual renaissance,” drawing connections across this timeline. In this post, we’ll focus on innovation in assistive technology and prosthetic design.
Berkeley has a rich history at the intersection of design and health, from the disability rights movement’s reshaping of urban and educational infrastructure in the 1970s to the 1998 establishment of the campus’ bioengineering department, in which students and faculty link engineering design principles with biology to create new medical devices, biomaterials, and more. Today, campus community members across departments continue to drive innovation at this intersection, bringing impact-focused approaches to their work with emerging technologies — from advanced robotics to machine learning with big data — that are opening new possibilities and challenges for health and wellness.
One area in which Berkeley students are currently leading exciting work is the development of new prosthetics and other assistive devices. In this field, they certainly have local roots to draw from: Chuck Radcliffe, widely considered “the father of prosthetic biomechanics,” received a PhD in mechanical engineering from Berkeley and joined the faculty in the late 1950s. Leading the Prosthetics Research Group of the Biomechanics Laboratory for the next 35 years, he and his colleagues pioneered prosthetic limb design, investigating human locomotion and making major contributions to the quadrilateral socket, the four-bar prosthetic knee, and other influential prosthetic designs.
Today, student design innovators are using new technologies to broaden access to prosthetics and other assistive technologies, exploring options for making them more customizable and affordable. EnableTech, a student organization founded in 2015, focuses on designing and building technologies that address everyday challenges faced by people with disabilities. Like the students who founded the pioneering Disabled Students’ Program at Berkeley in 1970, Enabletech’s founders have drawn both from their own experiences and from the experiences of local community members as they have grown their club. The group currently leads a student-taught DeCal course at Jacobs Hall and has active projects that range from a a glove that improves grip strength to a lift for people with limited leg strength.
Meanwhile, courses like Designing for the Human Body, an upper-division course taught by Grace O’Connell, and the bioengineering department’s Senior Design Projects capstone offering — both held in Jacobs Hall—provide opportunities for undergraduates to incorporate these kinds of design projects into their curriculum. In the most recent offering of Designing for the Human Body, several student teams drew from makerspace tools like consumer-grade 3D printers to prototype affordable prosthetics, with one group proposing a socket-based system that users could easily modify, imagining uses like painting or sports.
Even middle schoolers have gotten a taste of accessible prosthetic design through the College of Engineering’s Girls in Engineering program, in which participants have assembled prosthetic hands for children in sessions at the Jacobs Institute. The activity is part of a day in which the students receive an introduction to human-centered design, learn about the technology behind additive manufacturing processes like 3D printing, and get a hands-on opportunity to explore these tools’ potential for impact. With campus faculty, staff, and students helping facilitate these experiences, it’s a well-rounded introduction for a new generation — helping pave the way for the next 150 years of design innovation at Berkeley.
Look out for more in this series as we celebrate 150 years of design innovation. Visit our website to learn more about the Jacobs Institute, and explore 150 years of light across the Berkeley campus here.
By Laura Mitchell
