Exoskeletons in construction:

Nice article posted to the Associated Builders & Contractors of Wisconsin website & co-written by Prof. Zhenhua Zhu from UW-Madison & Mariya Sorenson, a construction manager with M.A. Mortenson.

They highlight 3 potential broad impacts of exos: 1. Improving worker safety & fostering a better safety culture in the construction industry.

Exoskeletons can reduce fatigue, muscle strain & wear-and-tear injuries, which could lead to substantial cost savings.

🚀 5 years ago, I stumbled—somewhat unexpectedly—into the world of tech translation, commercialization & startups. It's been a wild & enriching adventure!

👨🏾‍🔬 As a scientist-turned-entrepreneur, this journey opened my eyes to the business world.

But... 😡 Amidst all the positive learning & growth, there's one thing that truly gets under my skin: misleading marketing & unsubstantiated claims.

I spend a lot of time thinking about & discussing the science of #exoskeletons.

3 years ago, the single most common question I heard was:

❓Do exoskeletons cause muscle atrophy?

Short answer: No.

But I don't hear this as often anymore.

I believe there are 2 reasons why👇🏽 1️⃣ Science Communication

• For a long time, exo engineers/scientists mostly spoke to each other

• But now a broader audience is interested in exo tech

• And more researchers/developers are engaging in public discourse

This is helping reduce exo myths & misconceptions 👏🏽 🎉

Where do your research ideas originate from?

I used to source all of mine from academic literature & conferences, or from my own research.

But these can become echo chambers that limit thinking & creativity.

🔥 Here are 4 overlooked places to find impactful research problems: 1️⃣ Your own life

• This is why I started studying low back #biomechanics
• I was a parent to young kids & experiencing back pain
• I was curious if we could create more practical exoskeletons that'd fit into my own life

It started as an undergrad project then grew into more:

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:

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.

I wish I learned this tip earlier in my career:

👉🏽 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. 

Once I did, it transformed how I evaluate and develop new #exoskeletons, #prosthetics, #bionics & #wearables

💡 Tip for early career researchers: Sometimes you need to TELL, not ASK.

❌ Instead of asking your organization or boss: "How do I do X (procedure)"

✅ For truly important matters, tell them: "Y (goal) is what I'm striving to accomplish" or "Y is what I need to be successful." PhD student example:

❌ "How do I find an industry internship?"

✅ "I really need to get some industry experience during graduate school to set me up for success in what I want to do next in my career."

This week, I enjoyed visiting the vibrant, creative, & interdisciplinary researchers in @jointbme @CLEAR_NCSU_UNC.

I gave a seminar on lessons from translational #biomechanics R&D.

I shared 6 actionable tips to improve iterative, user-centric development in academic labs: 🧵 @jointbme @CLEAR_NCSU_UNC 1. Spend more time with users

• Get to know users deeply
• Don't focus conversations on your research/tech
• Give time for users to discuss their life & pain points

Use info to build user stories that complement technical requirements, & help prioritize studies or features

Want to improve your scientific presentations?

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

Patents & the patent process are rarely discussed in #biomechanics & #engineering fields of academia (at least in my experience). But they should be.

At @CREATEatVandy we held a roundtable discussion on patents/IP, fueled by great questions from students, postdocs & staff.
1/ I encourage other researchers to organize a similar event. Intellectual property (IP) is an important topic, but a common blindspot for university graduates (BS, MS, PhD), which leads to misperceptions & missed opportunities for translating science & tech into societal impact.
2/

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

Encouraged by what we discovered:
mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/2…

1/ 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/

Four years ago @leonscottmd asked if we could use #wearables to monitor & eventually reduce bone stress injury risks in runners. Based on our latest #biomechanics study I'm more & more convinced answer is going to be: Yes!

What we figured out so far:
authors.elsevier.com/c/1byHRcBxf01UA

1/ Here's a few things to discuss...

#1 what causes overuse injuries like stress fractures?

#2 how do current wearables assess injury risk?

#3 benefits of multi-sensor algorithms

#4 epidemiological evidence from occupational health suggests this approach can work

2/

Excited to share our new #biomechanics publication on the effect of low-profile elastic #exosuits on back muscle fatigue. #exoskeleton #exosuit

nature.com/articles/s4159…

Challenging experiment, but we learned a lot in the process. Here are the top 4 lessons I took away....

1/ First, huge kudos to lead author @lamers_erik who completed his PhD last month!

During his time @CREATEatVandy he completed a series of studies on quasi-passive wearable assistive devices spanning from foot prostheses to back-assist exosuits

Super proud of the work he did!

2/

Whoop recently reported a "Novel Algorithm Capable of Identifying 80% of Symptomatic COVID-19 Cases" using #Wearables.

Interesting study. Glad they're exploring & sharing findings.

But what caught my eye were the low Sensitivity values reported in the study preprint...
1/ I'd love to get input/perspective from folks w/ experience/expertise in diagnostic & screening tests.

Thoughts? Comments? Implications of this level of Sensitivity? 

Basically: Is the algorithm promising? Why or why not?

Here's link to preprint:
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
2/

Thanks for all the great @BiomechanicsDay posts, videos & memories shared this week! Refreshing, energizing & inspiring! @CREATEatVandy & I posted on a few social media sites. Compiling here into #NBD2020 ode to #biomechanics! What biomech is to us...

1/

#Biomechanics is about improving lives. Improving mobility & independence for those w/ disabilities. Preventing injury & sustaining health in others.

We aim to advance understanding of how people move, & translate science/engineering out of the lab.

2/

engineering.vanderbilt.edu/create/

So… We pulled on people with a robot until they told us to stop. Turns out you can yank on shank, thigh & shoulders w/ about one full body weight of force (on avg) before people reach their comfort limit. This work informs design of assistive #exosuits 1/
journals.plos.org/plosone/articl… We discovered that if we pull on people over multiple days, then by the 4th day they tolerated 20-35% higher forces than on the 1st day, before reaching their comfort limit. Multi-day habituation (to forces from exo/robot) makes a big difference in user comfort & experience! 2/

Excited to share our #preprint entitled "Achieving drastically improved estimates of tibial bone force and damage during running using wearable sensors." Questions, comments & feedback welcomed.
osf.io/preprints/spor…
@EmilyMatijevich @leonscottmd
#wearables #biomechanics
1/

https://twitter.com/SportrxivB/status/1214575554780729344

@EmilyMatijevich @leonscottmd This is a follow up to our 2019 paper which raised concerns that common GRF, impact, load rate, acceleration & tibial shock metrics are often being misused & misinterpreted in scientific studies & commercial #wearables that seek to track injury risk.
journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
2/

Very interesting article on US #innovation ecosystem, as well as perspective on technology translation challenges due to academic incentives.
hbr.org/2019/11/why-th…
1/ Key excerpts: "We’ve moved from an economy where big firms did both scientific research and development toward one with a starker division of labor, where corporations specialize in development, and universities specialize in research."
2/

One of the most common questions I hear is: could occupational #exoskeletons cause muscle atrophy/loss? Interestingly I’ve never heard anyone ask: when workers develop overuse injuries (& miss work for days, end up immobilized for weeks, or leave) does it cause muscle atrophy?
1/ I’m far more concerned about the latter scenario, which we know occurs regularly. Based on current scientific evidence, given the modest unloading provided by most #exoskeletons & #exosuits, & given the strenuous jobs done by industrial users, atrophy seems unlikely (imho).
2/

New #prosthetics publication that came out during @ISB_ASB2019 characterizes how individual prosthesis user gait biomechanics were affected by the next-generation @OssurCorp Propriofoot (ankle adaptation to slope) during incline walking. 1/n

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… @ISB_ASB2019 @OssurCorp Previous studies on similar microprocessor-controlled ankles have focused on group-level results (inter-subject mean). Our study builds upon this by presenting subject-specific results and investigating to what extent individual responses agree with the group-level results. 2/n