Science is the foundation, but user feedback is the north star:
• to know what to prioritize
• to learn where to improve
• to remember why you sweat all the science details
This is a vital lesson for those doing applied research whose feedback is mostly from other scientists
The combination of #biomechanics science and user-centric design is beginning to have the real-world impact the occupational #exoskeleton field long hypothesized it would.
End-users explain this best:
“When you show you care about people, that retains people,” one warehouse worker who piloted a back exosuit said. “Everybody in here, we’re all sore. We’re all hurting. But for the first time in a long time I won’t be hurting walking out of this building [because of the exosuit]”
Read more about how exosuits are supporting workers and reducing musculoskeletal disorder risks:
Early career researchers often stress out when they talk to more senior faculty about how many grant proposals they submit.
Don't compare. Focus on your writing process. Outcomes will follow.
Here are 5 proven tricks senior faculty use to submit more high-quality proposals:🧵
1. Resubmitting
• Revise/resubmit an unfunded proposal
• This takes much less time than writing a new application
This is easier to do (and comes naturally) as you get further into your career.
2. Repurposing
• Take a similar core idea and apply it to a new population or context
• Or you can sometimes submit the same proposal to multiple agencies (check w/ program officers first; you just can't accept two grants for the same work)
👉🏽 If you do R&D on wearable or assistive tech, wear/use prototypes regularly in your daily life. It helps empathize with end users. And improves your ability to design and test for usability & practicality.
Here's why (brief 🧵)
1. It builds your intuition.
In retrospect, this tip seems obvious. But most researchers & developers don't do it. It took me >10 years of biomedical R&D to realize it.
You'll notice design constraints you never knew existed. You'll think more deeply about user experience. And you'll create better lab and field evaluations more quickly.
It helps preempt fatal flaws before you start any serious design or testing work.
Every great seminar and conference speaker I've seen in my 15 years as an academic researcher did these 10 things. These can 10x your research visibility and impact. And this will unleash new opportunities. 🔥🚀
Let's dive in:
1. Start with something engaging
• Funny story
• Personal anecdote
• Interesting statistic (that the audience doesn't know)
The first thing you say determines whether the audience will be leaning in to listen or picking up their phone to check email. Act accordingly #SciComm
2. Explain the significance
• What's the broader impact on your field?
• What's the future impact on society?
• Why should anyone care?
It doesn't matter if you're presenting to experts in your field or a broad audience. Succinctly and clearly explain why your work matters.
Occupational #wearables for monitoring low back load have potential to improve ergonomic assessments & enable personalized, continuous monitoring of overexertion injury risk in the workplace. #biomechanics#ergonomics
We wanted to know: if we can only use a small number of wearable sensors to monitor low back loading, then which sensors should we use, where should we place them, what type of algorithm should we employ, & how accurately can we monitor back loading during material handling?
2/
To address this we synchronously collected data from the #biomechanics lab & from #wearables to analyze 10 individuals each performing 400 different material handling tasks. We explored dozens of candidate solutions that used IMUs on various body locations & pressure insoles.