I designed and engineered many elements of Elevate, a robotic knee brace that was available for rental at ski resorts all over North America during the winters of 2018-2020.

Design

Created the second and third iterations of the remote for Elevate.
Made quick-and-dirty prototypes for user interaction studies, and more elaborate prototypes for mechanism exploration.
Invented an innovative clip mechanism to mount the remote to the backpack solidly, but adjustably.

Engineering

When a mysterious squeaking sound began happening on devices in the field, I performed cycle testing to identify the source of wear inside the joint. I prototyped several potential solutions, cycled them all, and determined the one to implement in the field.
I developed a unique solution for preventing the brace’s straps from migrating around the ski boot’s ankle, while still maintaining an acceptable range of motion for the user’s feet.

Documentation

I wrote and compiled pages and pages of documentation for the Elevate system, including assembly instructions for our manufacturing team, inspection and testing instructions for our quality department, and user feedback forms to bring us full-circle for the next iteration of the system. I take pride in my ability to carefully tailor my tone to fit the audience, being highly technical and detailed for internal process instructions, and keeping things simple and clear for user-facing documents.

And when I had extra bandwidth, I volunteered to assist with controls development in the field. Wouldn’t you? :)