Applied Health Sciences students learn to innovate under pressure during inaugural Health Tech Jam
The UIC College of Applied Health Sciences’ physical therapy department took a page out of the tech industry’s video game development playbook when it launched a unique event meant to foster a sense of innovation and collaboration between two groups of students that would otherwise seldom interact.
The inaugural Health Tech Jam brought together nearly 40 students from the physical therapy and biomedical visualization programs and issued a challenge: develop a technological solution to a common health care problem — and do it in just six hours.
In a traditional industry “jam,” video game and mobile app developers come together with a host of interested parties — some are directly involved in game development and some are just passionate about video games — to “make something new, start to finish, in a 24- to 48-hour continuous block of time,” said Samantha Bond, visiting clinical assistant professor of physical therapy and biomedical and health information sciences.
“There is something about that magical mix of a fast-paced environment and the convergence of different backgrounds that creates amazing work,” Bond said, “and that is the energy we wanted to harness in our own jam.”
The Health Tech Jam took place over two days, three hours each day on March 6 and 7. Students first went through an ice-breaking activity meant to create a sense of team spirit between the two unacquainted groups.
“Even though BVIS and PT students have a lot in common, like the fact that they want to help people, they have very different skills and very few opportunities to interact,” Bond said. “To break the ice, we put a unique spin on a good old-fashioned rock-paper-scissors tournament.”
For each match, if a student lost, he or she was recruited to a cheering section for the winner. “By the last match, the whole group was involved by cheering for one of the two final players — the energy shot through the roof,” Bond said.
The students were then divided into eight teams and presented with a series of prompts about common health-related issues, such as healthy eating and avoiding falls. Following a brainstorm of potential tech-related solutions and consultation with participating faculty members, each team selected one idea to develop into a “Shark Tank”-style pitch they would present in competition for theoretical funding.
First-year physical therapy student Katie Kanturek’s group proposed a product call Utrition, a mobile app that provides a health score and associated warnings for foods when a user scans the foods’ barcodes, ideally in a grocery store or while making a shopping list. The idea, Kanturek said, is to help people who need support understanding how to choose healthy foods.
“I came into school thinking I would just be treating patients,” Kanturek said. “When I thought about tech in physical therapy, I thought about prosthetics and exercise equipment — it was rarely about social media, apps or websites.
“Now, knowing that I can be someone who is an asset to creating new health tech products is really exciting to me,” she said, “because maybe I can help more people understand more about health than just the ones I will treat on a daily basis.”
Angela Gao, a second-year student in the biomedical visualization program, said working with the physical therapy students was very helpful.
“Without the perspective of the PT students, we wouldn’t have been able to design a tool with the practitioner in mind, as well as with a patient,” Gao said.
Gao’s team won the final pitch with their product Exerguide, a mobile app that teaches people about at-home exercises with normal household items, such as a chair or a water bottle.
“It’s designed for people who don’t have access to a gym, have gym fear, don’t know how to start exercising, or have other reasons why they need to stay at home,” Gao said.
As winners, Gao and her team members will have the opportunity to actually develop their product with faculty support.
“The energy and positivity of the Health Tech Jam was really encouraging,” Gao said, “and I learned that collaboration with people from diverse backgrounds gives birth to better ideas.”
Bond said the goal of the Health Tech Jam is not about preparing students for one specific situation. “It’s about preparing students to innovate in any situation, to work with people of different backgrounds and to solve problems,” she said.
In the future, Bond hopes the Health Tech Jam will grow to include other departments and colleges across campus.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
A virtual reality experience changes the client into a 74-year-old called Alfred keeping in mind the end goal to see his point of view as a restorative patient He's conversing with you, however you.
I present to you a colorful and vivid interpretation of gut flora of the small intestine, featuring E. Coli and a Ruminococcus bacteria. Both of these models were sculpted in Z-brush, as well as the microvilli you see in the foreground. The microvilli in the background were created using a hair and fur modifier in 3ds Max. All of these components were composited in Adobe Photoshop.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for this project were the microvilli, a seemingly odd thing to be concerned about, since they were not intended to be the focus of the piece. However, it’s the microvilli that contribute so much of the atmosphere and give you an anatomical reference for where this scene takes place, I wanted to make sure they were not glossed over. Thus, I created rolling hills of microvilli as far as the eye can see.
This assignment was an endeavor to accurately illustrate a cross section of an eye. Eye anatomy is extremely precise and the complexity is often overlooked when people are drawing it, resulting in a slew of some pretty poorly illustrated eyes. Here is my attempt at a good representation of the human eye.
I'm learning Z-brush! It's a fantastic program that really allows me to sculpt exactly what I'm envisioning.
Here you can see the final render and composite of a goat fetus I sculpted. This little guy was so fun to make. And dare I say he's extraordinarily cute?
I used many, many z-spheres in order to orient his limbs in space so that he looked natural and comfortable in his environment. That's one of the many tools in Z-brush that I'm enjoying. Of course, I had just as much fun adding in all the effects afterwards with Photoshop. What a fun work flow!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Just a quick update to announce that I graduated last week! Woohoo! I'm the gal on the far right, feeling great and trying to stay composed despite the terrific wind along with some of my fellow graduates. Yay!
I'm excited to present to you my first 3D modeling assignment, sculpted and rendered in Autodesk Mudbox and Autodesk 3ds Max with the final composite done in Adobe Photoshop. I wanted to do a scene capturing the moment where a cell undergoing apotosis is being phagocytized by a macrophage. I managed to have quite a lot of fun figuring out how to construct wild pseudopodia and a blebby apototic cell dressed in a toxic green.
Most of the models were done in Mudbox, because I wanted a really nice, organic feel that I wasn't sure 3ds Max would be able to give me. But after going through the process, I'm confident I could have done a similar mesh in 3ds Max by playing with some unique maps and materials. Something to note for next time.
There are a few tweaks here and there that were suggested; I will probably go and touch those things up before the end of the semester, but I'm very happy with what I achieved. Learning how to do 3D modeling, lighting, compositing, and sculpting at a competent level in basically 10 weeks is quite an accomplishment, I think! This is only the beginning!
It's been a lot of work the last few weeks, but not a lot I have to show you. I'll probably be uploading some of my 3D modeling exercises soon just to show you the process of my learning the programs. But until then, let me share with you my latest Illustrator creation.
The assignment was to create a 8.5" x 11" handout of a procedure that could be given to students at the Graham Clinical Performance Center at UIC. It was really fun for them to have our class in the clinic, demonstrating a variety of procedures for us to take notes on and pictures of for reference. And, boy, did I use a lot of references. Pictures and Youtube videos became my go-to for this project, because I am not familiar with any of these tools.
While the organic forms were easy to manipulate with the pencil and width tool, I found the clean, pristine lines needed to create the tool drills and needles to be a challenge. It became one of those 'I know what I want this to look like, but how do I get there?' challenges.
