“Technology can be a powerful tool for opening up the world to people with disabilities. This is something that Hananeh Esmailbeigi, a clinical associate professor with the Richard and Loan Hill Department of Bioengineering, knows firsthand from her research in wearable devices, and it’s the topic of her talk at this year’s virtual Grace Hopper Celebration.”

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“Allison Bayro, Analise Hernandez, and Brandon Sakas worked on creating a wearable oral device called BruxALERT that uses biofeedback to alert users when they are clenching or grinding—a habit called bruxism that can lead to chronic headaches, face and jaw soreness, receding gums, and lesions of the teeth.”

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This article talks about how the wearable technology wearables and nearables laboratory course functions in the virtual environment. Dr. Esmailbeigi  and her teaching assistance worked hard to make 32 kits containing all the supplies needed to make all the devices for this semester.

“The silver lining of going virtual is that each student will have the ability to learn how to put together the devices from start to finish, whereas in the past, some students shied away from different aspects of the work. Also, previously students had to work on the projects in a lab setting during class.”

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Nicholas Marjanovic was one of the 11 open finalists at the 2017 EMBC Student Paper Competition, which took place at Jeju, Korea. He presented his work “Wireless Wearable User Interface Cursor-Controller (UIC-C)” on behalf of Dr. Esmailbeigi lab (Wearable Technology and Sensory Enhancement Laboratory). He was honored during a special reception and received an award for his achievement.

On Monday April 10th, Tongue Ventures participated in the UIC Start Up competition and received 2nd Place receiving a $2,000 prize. The team consists of Kevin Kerr, Nicholas Marjanovic, Ricardo Aranada, Ernesto Berrum, and Dr. Hananeh Esmailbeigi. Tongue Ventures works on developing assistive devices for disabled patients using the tongue as a medium. The potential devices would be able to help a wide range of disabilities ranging from individuals with ALS and Amputees to Quadriplegia. Each device is a custom made retainer with electronics housed internally allowing for discrete and wireless transmission to any Bluetooth enabled technology.

For more information on the work in progress go to: https://esmailbeigi.lab.uic.edu/research-2/tongue-ventures/

The Tongue Controller Interface group was awarded the VentureWell E-Stage One award for $5,000. The team participated in the VentureWell workshop held at Autodesk and M.I.T. The workshops exposed engineering students to industry experts versed in the fields of entrepreneurship, business, and protection of intellectual property.

Here is a link to the VentureWell E–Team stage one grantees: https://venturewell.org/e–team-grantees/

Lauren Craig, from The Wearable Technology and Sensory Enhancement Laboratory, was awarded a $500 Honors College Undergraduate Research Grant for her project proposal. This grant will fund the development and prototyping of a wearable device for detecting disease biomarkers.