UC Davis professor, design and engineering students create jacket that unfolds, fastens itself

With the help of Assistant Professor in the Department of Design Dr. Helen Koo, two UC Davis students designed and engineered the self-fitting, origami-style “Enfold jacket” for people with body movement difficulties.

Fourth-year design and psychology double major Jason Lin and second-year electrical engineering major Jasmine Zhou collaborated with Koo to create a jacket that would essentially fasten itself, saving the wearer the difficult tasks of buttoning and fitting into a jacket.

“I always had an interest in developing clothing for people who are sitting on a wheelchair, because special clothing would be needed for them,” Koo said in an email interview. “When they sit for a long time, their body shape and postures change, [causing] discomfort and pain. I wanted to develop clothing that could automatically [be] put on and off, and that could keep [the wearer’s] dignity and privacy and reduce the work of caregivers.”

Lin had an interest in the subject, having interned at the UC Davis Student Disability Center and taken a multitude of developmental psychology classes. After listening to Koo deliver a talk at TEDxUCDavis in April 2015, Lin became inspired to design fashion for people with disabilities.

“I realized [fashion] can actually help real problems,” Lin said. “[Koo] mentioned, ‘What if we could make clothes that helped people who couldn’t move very well, and the clothes kind of put themselves on?’ It sounded kind of magical.”

Lin contacted a peer with cerebral palsy, a movement disorder that often impairs motor skills, and asked her about any clothing difficulties stemming from her disability. The student mentioned difficulties with buttoning, which then gave Lin the idea of a design that might solve this problem.

“A jacket that would button itself up was the idea,” Lin said. “The whole point is to give people a sense of independence, because clothing yourself is a really independent activity.”

Lin and Zhou both began interning for Koo in spring 2015 at the Fashion Design and Technology Lab (FT Lab). With Koo’s supervision, the two students used their different branches of study to complete the Enfold project; Lin concentrated on the design of the jacket while Zhou specialized in the technical field.

“We combined knowledge and techniques of fashion design, industrial design and electrical and computer engineering,” Koo said in the email.

The Enfold jacket is made of polyester fabric that is folded, ironed and seamed with shape memory alloy, a wire that can be bent and then straightened with an electric current.

“The jacket would fold up using origami techniques,” Zhou said. “In parts of the folds, we would stick shape memory alloy wires, which would return to a straightened position when a current was passed through them. We integrated that with the origami part to unfold the jacket in such a way that the two parts of the jacket would come together and use a magnet to fasten.”

Lin applied his 15 years of experience with origami techniques to the Enfold jacket design.

“We were thinking of different ways that you can make clothes change,” Lin said. “I’ve been folding origami for a lot of my life, so that was my concept — putting origami folds into clothes.”

An Arduino micro-controlling device was used to run the current through the shape memory alloy wire. The wire is made of a nickel-titanium alloy designed to remember specific shapes that will reform once the wire is heated to a certain temperature– in this case, by the current from the Arduino.

“We had a few buttons that you push to get the shape memory alloy to activate,” Zhou said. “The purpose of hooking [the shape memory alloy wire] up with the Arduino is to change the behavior. We could make [the jacket] actuate faster or slower.”

Despite their best efforts, there were problems that both Zhou and Lin faced in each of their respective fields during the process. For Zhou, safely adding battery power to the jacket was challenging. Meanwhile, Lin faced obstacles in designing the jacket, including which fabric to use and assembling the pieces of the jacket.

“Trying to make it look good and do what it’s supposed to do was a real challenge,” Lin said. “It’s harder to fold the wire in sharp corners than you’d think, and just getting the two [sides of the jacket] to line up was a real pain.”

Due to the weight of the magnets, Lin and Zhou also experienced difficulties getting the wire to acquire enough force to push the magnets towards each other.

Because of these problems, the Enfold jacket was not completed as they had hoped, and various issues regarding the mechanics of the jacket have not yet been solved. However, Koo and her students said they are still hopeful for the future of the jacket.

“We want to develop [the jacket] into various items and designs including different sizes and transforming details,” Koo said. “Also, we want it to recover well, so that when we press the button, it can go back to its original shape, to make it easy to put on and off.”

Koo and her students considered the project both a learning process and an inspirational innovation for students with disabilities, which could lead to ground-breaking inventions in the future.

“‘Enfold’ means to fold something, and also to clasp something really lovingly, and that was where the whole project started — from a place of love,” Lin said. “We want to help these people that can’t really move as independently as other people. We want to give them this jacket that essentially clasps around them and gives them a sense of independence and warmth.

Written by: Allyson Tsuji – features@theaggie.org

Five ways to stay healthy this flu season.

Flu season is upon us, which means it’s time to head over to the Student Health and Wellness Center or your local drugstore to get your annual flu shot! Still, getting the flu shot isn’t the only thing you can do to stay healthy this season. Check out these tips below so you can avoid battling the flu while studying for midterms and finals.

1. Carry vitamins in your backpack

Although it’s not medicine, and is never a sure-fire way to “cure” the flu, a vitamin formula is easy to carry around, easy to drink with water and an easy way to support your immune system. Make sure to keep Airborne or some Emergen-C packets handy, so that in case you do feel like you’re coming down with something, you’ll be prepared to fight it.

2. Invest in an alcohol-based sanitizer

Germ-X, Purell and even Bath and Body Works hand sanitizers contain 60 percent alcohol. Some even come with cute little keychains to attach to your backpack for easy access. Soap and water are great, but not always available when you’re in class or eating. Make hand sanitizer your best friend — it’ll always be there for you, even in your germiest times.

3. Keep your work and living spaces clean

It’s easy to let things pile up when you’re swamped with work, but you’ll thank yourself for cleaning up the spaces that you use daily — especially if you live with roommates or work with other students. To ensure cleanliness, don’t leave any dark or damp corners around!

4. Get enough sleep

It sounds simple enough, but any full-time college student knows that this is way easier said than done. Sleep is vital to a healthy immune system, and if you make sure to get enough rest, you’ll be a lot more prepared if a flu or cold develops.

5. Put yourself first

Always make your health a priority. Take a break from school or other commitments if you come down with a flu or any other illness. Don’t push yourself and make it worse — give yourself a good few days to recover. Make some hot tea, get out those cozy, fuzzy socks and kick back with your favorite Netflix show or movie. You’ll feel much better with a couple days of rest than trying to push yourself through something that requires energy your body doesn’t have.

Written by: Anjali Bhat – features@theaggie.org

Researchers, director, intervention coach discuss bettering education for dyslexic children

New research from the UC Davis Department of Psychology has revealed that when it comes to children afflicted with dyslexia, early intervention is increasingly necessary.

Dyslexia is a common learning disorder that affects nearly three million children in the United States each year, and is characterized by difficulties in memorizing, spelling, understanding language, learning words and speaking.

Dr. Emilio Ferrer, a UC Davis professor of psychology, has studied the development of certain cognitive abilities for many years with his colleagues from Yale University, Bennett and Sally Shaywitz. Their most recent longitudinal study focuses on child reading abilities from first to 12th grade, in which they found that dyslexic readers had lower reading scores which didn’t converge with the scores of typical readers.

According to Ferrer, the main finding was that the discrepancy was already apparent in first grade and serves as the reason why dyslexic readers are not able to catch up with their peers in later years.

“Our reasoning was, if […] the differences between reading proficiency were already present in first grade, then we have to intervene earlier than that [if we want to close the gap],” Ferrer said.

Ferrer’s research is the first step toward an ambitious project headed by his colleague, Dr. Emily Solari, an associate professor in the UC Davis School of Education. Solari has been interested in the reading capabilities of children since her dissertation and is in the process of implementing what she hopes will eventually become a nationwide intervention program for dyslexic children.  

“We often don’t know how to respond to those kids; we don’t know what to do with those kids,” Solari said. “We know that they’re struggling, but we don’t have the best tools to help them out.”

Through past pilot projects, Solari has found that, within small samples, individual attention and specific teaching methods have improved reading skills and comprehension, and in turn has developed a curriculum designed for dyslexic children. She is now looking to recreate her results in a larger-scale intervention program with a recent $3.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Science.

“My goal is to get a good intervention program in the hands of teachers that is both feasible to implement and is going to benefit kids in their reading development,” Solari said. “So far, the data shows us that this particular intervention program is doing that. The real test for this study, since it’s on a much larger scale, is to see if we still get the same results.”

According to Ferrer, the program design starts with assessing the children, identifying those who are having trouble reading and then randomly selecting some of them to place into an intervention group. The remaining kids will make up the control group and follow the standard teaching curriculum.

The intervention curriculum is both code and meaning-based and focuses on the aspects that Solari believes are key to reading comprehension. Code-based means teachers will help kids learn how to put sounds together to make words, so they will be able to recognize and read them later on. Meaning-based focuses on developing higher-order language and comprehension skills.

After a period of three years, Solari and her team will analyze the reading results of each child to see whether or not the intervention program had any lasting effect, given that everything else was held equal.

“For this three-year study, the kids will be getting the intervention in first grade and we’ll follow them to second grade,” Solari said. “Hopefully we’ll get more funding to follow them more long-term.”

Although it is only a few months into their first year, Solari’s team has already brought teachers into UC Davis for training. Teachers receive the full intervention program curriculum and in-class coaching from Solari’s staff, who work with them in the classroom to make sure they are able to implement the program in the way it was intended.

One of Solari’s staff, Deanne Castaneda, is the program intervention coach and she accompanies the teachers back to their classrooms to oversee the implementation of the program into their class routine.

“The teachers attended training in the program and my job is to go in and help them in any way I can to implement the program,” Castaneda said. “I’m their support, I help them establish the routine of these activities for the kids.”

Part of the curriculum entails a series of games through which the teachers can give reading lessons. This method is much easier for the kids to become interested in the material and focuses specifically on helping them with their decoding of words and sounds, which will in turn help them with their reading.

Although optimistic about the future results, Solari acknowledges that the study has had its fair share of setbacks. Her staff has experienced resistance when working with teachers, some of whom have been teaching for 30 years or more and are unaccustomed to having their pedagogy advised.

“It’s very difficult sometimes to get teachers who are willing to change what they do,” Solari said.  “We’re asking them to change their teaching behaviors around reading because we’re trying to provide them with the tools they need to deal with the kids. For every single one of our teachers who’s new to the program, it’s the first time they’re doing this so there’s a learning curve for them too.”

Although the initial task may seem daunting, Castaneda said that most of the teachers she has worked with have been cooperative and excited about the intervention program. There is a feeling of unity among the educators and program staff, that they all strive to create a better future for children.

To bolster that feeling, the study has already shown promising results. Castaneda said she is confident that this larger study will yield the same results as the pilot projects, and is looking forward to improving education for more children with learning disabilities.

“I’m already seeing some gains with the kids and it’s really exciting,” Castaneda said.  “The program is breaking these things down step-by-step and working towards building up their reading and comprehension skills and it’s wonderful to see.”  

Written by: Lisa Wong – feaures@theaggie.org