A Look Inside Widener's Maker's Lab and Its Award-Winning Accessibility Innovations

An occupational therapy student-faculty team work in The Maker's Lab designing a robotic arm reacher for a client in need.

Occupational therapy students are once again earning international recognition for accessibility design and innovation.

Projects led by graduate students and faculty in the Institute for Occupational Therapy Education were named among the best in the Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM) 2024 Global Innovation Challenge this spring. The annual challenge calls for professionals across industries to design, engineer, and create technology that can help a person with a disability live a more independent and fulfilling life.

That's exactly what Laurel Gogel '24 and Kayla Michel '24 did with the development of Vora, a feminine hygiene tampon applicator designed to assist individuals with fine motor challenges.

Kayla Michel and Laurel Gogel show the final prototype for Vora.

Originally developed as part of a course assignment, Vora meets the needs of Gillian Gunn '24, an IOTE classmate who has rheumatoid arthritis in her hands, which causes difficulty with dexterity and strength. Using 3D printing technology, Gogel and Michel's vision improved daily living for Gunn and earned them the grand

prize in the challenge's daily living category.

The use of 3D printing continues to grow in popularity throughout the healthcare industry, allowing practitioners to manufacture patient-ready assistive devices, such as Vora, quickly and at little cost.

"It broadens the amount of services and things that you can provide for your clients," said Gogel.

According to Michel, producing a personalized assistive device from start to finish gives her and her classmates an advantage in the field and can improve the quality of life for future clients.

It doesn't have to be as extravagant as a tampon applicator. It could be simple modifications, which is really cool and now I feel like we have that in our toolkit as we go into the next step of our careers." -Kayla Michel '24

Vora is one of the latest adaptive products created in the newest Widener 3D printing lab, The Maker's Lab.

Located in Academic Center North, The Maker's Lab addresses healthcare and accessibility needs for local and global communities. Founded by Monique Chabot, then an associate professor of occupational therapy, the lab houses leading 3D printing software and technology and invites interprofessional collaboration from programs across campus.

Victoria Nedza demonstrates how she uses the robotic reach in her daily life.

The lab's partnership with robotics engineering helped produce a robotic arm reacher, one of the TOM 2024 Global Innovation Challenge devices submitted by Chabot, and occupational therapy students Marie Alvarado '24, and Chris Girardo '24.

The device, which was a finalist in the daily living category, was developed specifically for Victoria Nedza, a Bucks County resident who has a rare form of muscular dystrophy. When standard commercial reachers didn't work, Nedza was paired with the Widener team through the Pennsylvania Assistive Technology Program TechOWL to find a tailored solution.

"I bought probably every kind [of reacher] that they make," Nedza said. "Heavy duty ones, I bought generic ones from the dollar store, I bought a kid one; I just couldn't use it."

Watch Victoria use the robotic reacher in action

The Widener team worked one-on-one with Nedza remotely and in her home to create a custom assistive device with a touch sensor enabling Nedza to control a motorized grabber with the simple tap of a finger.

"We wouldn't have been able to do it without Victoria's help because she advocated for herself and she gave so much input and was fantastic," said Alvarado, who managed the product's design and assembly.

Chris Girardo with the robotic arm reacher.

Girardo overview the technical components, which required coordinating with robotics engineering. For Girardo, the experience underscored how practitioners can leverage interprofessional innovation to better care for clients.

Learning about all the different technology that we have available to make things happen, like the electronic reacher, and then also the interprofessional collaboration and being able to work closely with robotics engineering and learn what they do in their field and apply it to my practice was really cool." -Chris Girardo '24

That interprofessional approach, according to Chabot, is a core principle of the lab.

"It's no longer just a health science area, and it was never meant to be just a health science area, and I'm really happy to see that the engineering students are feeling at home in it, too," said Chabot.

More clients like Nedza will be able to benefit from the lab's collaboration and creativity as it was recently accepted into the Makers Making Change Community. This designation places Widener in a network of volunteers providing low-cost alternatives to commercially available assistive technologies through a digital open source platform.

Chabot noted that this designation is a big step for the lab and the service it can provide to the broader community.

"It's really exciting because [the lab] is really starting to become the community that I want it to be, but also really revolving around getting these unmet needs met for people," said Chabot.

Learn more about Occupational Therapy at Widener