Category: Week2

Last week was my first time visiting the DRES building. I thought it was really interesting to see the progression of the racing wheelchairs over time. Especially as an industrial designer, I found it inspiring to see the amount of opportunity there is within this field. While we were in the basement we also had the chance to see four athletes training on racing wheelchair rollers. This really put a lot into perspective for me, forcing me to think about the stigmas there is surrounding people who use wheelchairs in relation to exercise. 

I really appreciated the people we met during our visit for giving us some their time and sharing their stories. As a designer in this situation it is easy to think just of the wheelchair and design innovation vs. the person and their life experiences. It was extremely valuable to sit down at a table and listen to their stories. In design it is very structure oriented, and having the opportunity to listen to real life experience gave me a lot more insight than I would have jumping into this project with strictly online research. Everybody had such interesting and unique story to share. 

Isabella Manobianco

www.isabellamanobianco.com

My experience with human-centered design is limited, if not absent entirely. So, when approaching the first day of class, I became nervous that my little knowledge of 3D printing from seminars and brief interactions with the software was going to be enough to be successful in this class. Watching the mindset videos before class, I discovered my potential strengths and weaknesses when it comes to making. Overcoming failure and optimism are two states of mind that have resonated with me my entire life. On the other hand, I tend to struggle with my creative confidence, becoming anxious and unsure any time I am faced with presenting my own writings, speeches or any other form of creative expression. Additionally, I often find myself struggling through ambiguity; I enjoy set plans that can be accomplished in a certain amount of time. As I continue this semester, I will look for opportunities to grow my creative confidence and to embrace ambiguity while maintaining my optimistic and resilient mindset. I cannot imagine a better group for inspiration than those at DRES.

Finding Inspiration

While exploring the mindsets, I have been thrilled to come across people with stories that inspire me. Going to the seminar at DRES, I was in awe of the characteristics within those we met. When sympathy comes easily, it may be hard to have empathy for those who are different from ourselves, but the passionate and fascinating story telling that came from this trip truly helped me better understand the life of a person with disabilities.

Arielle absolutely amazed everyone with her growing business and dedication to distributing chairs to those who are not fortunate enough to afford one in Kenya. She started with creating something she wanted and soon realized that it was a need for those around campus and around the world, so she iterated until she found a system that worked. She continues to iterate to find better technology so she can hopefully customize gloves more efficiently.

Another story that resonated with me was Ron’s. After his injury, he maintained his hard work and figured out how to make it. By “it”, I mean anything and everything that could help him or others work, move, and live more efficiently. He had confidence in his creativity and spoke of a resourcefulness I could only imagine.

Each of the stories at DRES have inspired me in different ways and offered me a unique form of empathy. I am excited to bring my learnings into the class and continue to grow my mindsets.

I had pictures, but for some reason the files are too large to download. Hopefully I can figure them out for next week.

Elisa Ambrose

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Gies College of Business

The visit to DRES was very interesting. It definitely was a new experience. I’ve heard alot about the faculty from Adam and Dr. McDonagh. It was cool to actually see the space. Never before have I witnessed racing chairs, training, or even the tech that goes into it all. I was able to see the historical evolution of the chair and meet some very key players in the space.

This visit helped me put everything in perspective. To hear Arielle’s story of creating a product and scaling it into a profitable business was truly inspiring. The stories from the experts also sparked opportunity for innovation. I want to sit down and  really pick their brains. It’s a lot of value gaining knowledge from their lived experiences and challenges they face.

As of right now I have a few ideas in mind. Some more feasible than others. I think to really dive deep into this my team and I are going to brainstorm. Once we get a bit more time with the experts and do a bit more due diligence, we’re going to create a product that will change the game forever!  

Trevor Sibby

My first time visit to the DRES was really awesome. I have heard a lot about this place thanks to Professor Dr. McDonagh inviting coach Adams to our class. And I was always very excited to visit this place since then. When I first entered the gym, the first thing I’ve realized is that there were no mirrors. For me, when I worked out during my army years, I loved to workout in front of a large mirror. This way, I can look at my body position and fix it if I am in a bad position. But other than that, the training room was really clean and didn’t smell like sweat at all! My favorite had to be the Paralympic wheelchairs hanging on the ceiling, making me feel like I’m part of the history.

I loved how all the mentors had their own stories and they were very supportive when we had questions. Also, I loved how each one of them sparked us with some questions. Such as Ryan telling us to look into the opportunities in “snow tires” and “ski tires”. Ariel gave some statistic of how 65 million people do not have any access to wheel chairs, so we have an opportunity in where we can create a wheel chair out of 3d printers.

For me, I am most interested in mentor Jenna and her prosthetic leg. She is a senior majoring in Kinesiology and is a RA. As the weather gets cold and the roads get icy, she told us the ice makes it difficult for her to get her from one to the next. And when she falls the ground, she tells us how careful she is when she falls down to the ground. Because, her prosthetic legs are very expensive (about 100,000 dollars), she needs to be careful not to fall on the knee part of the leg. Then she showed us how she has already scratched it. (even though it was made out of titanium) Also, since her prosthetic leg isn’t water proof (water proof ones costs 1/4 million dollars) she has to always rinse her leg after going outside in the winter. So, I feel this is the opportunity our team is going to tackle for the next few weeks.

Jae Lee

Personally, I have never been in a class where I have been able to interact and physically design solution for issues that people face every day. One of my favorite thing Professor Sachdev said day one was, “We are not looking to solve problems, but we are looking to find opportunities”. I thought that this was an amazing way to look at innovation that I have never noticed before.

To begin our initial discovery of our semester projects we took a trip to the Disability Resource & Educational Service. We initially began our research as Adam took us around a tour of the wheel chair training facility. On this tour Adam really helped us understand the accomplishments of all these fantastic athletes. Adam took us to the back of his shop and showed us the 3D printed gloves and other or his very own inventions to help train his decorated athletes.

After the tour, we went to a meeting room where our entire class was able to hear the fantastic stories of Ron, Ryan, and Jenna. Since I have never been in a class or consulting project like this I thought it was really amazing to hear first-hand accounts of living with a disability. Ron, Ryan and Jenna’s stories were all vastly different but all inspired and connected with me to want to make a change.

After we heard first-hand stories, my partner Jay and I talked to Jenna slightly more in-depth to get some more information about her. One of her concerns had to do with her $100 thousand leg. After our conversation, Jay and I started drafting some ideas on some of the opportunities that Jenna provided us. I’m very excited to see what the semester has in store for us!

Ryan Kane

My name is Ryan Kane, and I am a senior graduating in the spring of 2019 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Gies College of Business. I have a double major is both Supply Chain Management and Information Systems and Information Technology.

This week, we had the privilege of hearing from some incredible experts to better understand the need for new designs. These experts not only listed the shortcomings of designs for their use, but also solutions they had created along the way. In particular, Robs countless stories reminded me of the “Make-It” mindset that revolves around quick prototyping. Throughout his life, Rob had created a multitude of quick fixes to make sure he could do what he needed to do from a wheelchair or on crutches. This is similar to the origin of Ingenium, as Arielle originally printed gloves for herself and her teammates, and honed in on the design just by starting to make!

This organized approach to meeting our experts and having informal time to interview them was very different from what I have done in other classes. In another design class, we were taught the methodology of human-centered design. Our group took the task of redesigning a shipping box to avoid pain points, such as difficulty to open for those with arthritis, lack of waterproofing, ability to be stolen, etc. For a look into this previous project, you can check out our “final project pitch” here. However, to gather information of pain points from the user group, we just used our own knowledge and created a survey based off of that. The limitations with a survey is that you have to know what to ask to get good information.

With a roundtable discussion like we had in class, the experts are able to explain their pain points themselves, and then the class was able to ask for a deeper dive on certain points to find the root of the pain point. It also puts a face to a problem. The experts we met were incredible individuals, and the fact that they encounter so many shortcomings with the designs of their tools draws on the empathetic nature of human-centered design. This empathetic mindset is crucial to solving a problem that does not impact you directly. With my previous box project, there were some pain points that I myself had encountered. However, with accessibility, I do not have personal experience so I need to draw on an empathetic mindset to be able to put myself in our experts’ shoes to design something that is not only useful but will be used.

Overall, after week 2 I am incredibly excited to start learning the tools we will be utilizing to create solutions for these awesome individuals. The ability to put our learning into action and create accessible public designs is an awesome change from my normal classes which focus on conceptual knowledge.

Samantha McClary