KINGSTON, R.I., Nov. 6, 2017\u2014A 溏心vlog免费B站 engineering student wants to teach people the right way to lift heavy objects.<\/p>\n
Actually, her shirt does.<\/p>\n
Marjorie Pickard is the co-creator of a smart T-shirt that has the ability to detect improper lifting techniques and is so promising it won a top award at a recent startup contest.<\/p>\n
Sensors in the shirt\u2014appropriately called SmartShirt\u2014measure movements of the spine and shoulders, then send feedback through a smartphone application.<\/p>\n
While everyone could benefit from heavy-lifting advice, Pickard says the shirt she developed with a classmate is tailored to factory and warehouse workers, who frequently lift heavy objects without guidance on the best forms and techniques.<\/p>\n
Pickard wowed judges at the 12th<\/sup> annual RI Business Plan Elevator Pitch Competition Nov. 1 at the Tech Collective in Providence, winning third place among 34 contestants. Pickard received $100\u2014and a boost of energy to take her shirt to the next level.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really exciting to win,\u201d says Pickard. \u201cI was happy about the judges\u2019 reaction to the project. They seemed generally enthused about the idea. Wearable tech is a booming field.\u201d<\/p>\n Sponsored by the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition, the contest promotes entrepreneurship and development of startup companies in Rhode Island. The competitors\u2014college students and entrepreneurs\u2014had 90 seconds to convince the judges, all local business leaders, that their projects solved a problem and are commercially viable. Contestants were also evaluated on preparation and enthusiasm.<\/p>\n A 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate student and 溏心vlog免费B站 professor were runner-ups. Linden Wyatt was recognized for his startup Optera Diagnostics, which is developing an instrument to analyze human tissue biopsies faster. Wyatt received his doctorate in physics from 溏心vlog免费B站 last July and will graduate with a master in business administration in December.<\/p>\n And Mindy Levine, associate professor of chemistry, was singled out for The Party Elements, a business she created that brings science parties to people of all ages, from preschool children to adults. The goal is to expand the business nationally.<\/p>\n The idea for SmartShirt came to Pickard and her classmate, Jeremy Doody, of Westfield, Mass<\/strong>., during their Wearable Internet of Things class taught by Kunal Mankodiya, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and director of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Wearable Biosensing Laboratory.<\/p>\n A North Kingstown<\/strong> native on track to graduate in May, Pickard is majoring in electrical engineering and French through 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s five-year International Engineering Program. Mankodiya asked Pickard to pitch the shirt project for the contest.<\/p>\n \u201cProfessor Mankodiya asked us to design a wearable item that could solve a problem and help people,\u201d says Pickard. \u201cAt first, we thought about weightlifters, then Kunal steered us toward factory workers because that\u2019s a larger market and there are fewer devices available.\u201d<\/p>\n The tight-fitting shirt is a synthetic-cotton blend. Four sensors, which bend with body movements, are stitched into the shirt along the spine. Eventually, sensors will be installed on the shoulders.<\/p>\n The plastic sensors curve as the worker moves. Signals are sent to a microcontroller in the shirt. That microcontroller analyzes the sensors\u2019 messages to determine if the body movements are safe for heavy lifting.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the microcontroller, the information is also sent to a smartphone application,\u201d says Pickard. \u201cWhen workers have bad form they can find out about it on their cell phone. Employers can also receive the data.\u201d<\/p>\n The goal is to reduce the number of work-related back injuries, says Pickard. This, in turn, could decrease the number of workers\u2019 compensation claims, saving companies money.<\/p>\n Pickard and Doody are still working on a prototype that they expect to complete by the end of December. In time, they hope to seek a patent for the project.<\/p>\n The future looks bright. A judge in the contest who owns a workers\u2019 compensation insurance firm told Pickard he was keen on the shirt.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was definitely exciting,\u201d says Pickard. \u201cIt made me think about the possibilities of the device as more than a class project. Everything I\u2019ve learned over the past five years is being applied to a real-life problem, and that\u2019s fulfilling.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I., Nov. 6, 2017\u2014A 溏心vlog免费B站 engineering student wants to teach people the right way to lift heavy objects. Actually, her shirt does. Marjorie Pickard is the co-creator of a smart T-shirt that has the ability to detect improper lifting techniques and is so promising it won a top award at a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}