Posturington

Lowest sphere of the snowman
Bottom half of the lowest sphere in assembly
First posture measurment prototype
The Posture Pet yet to receive his wicked hat
Back of the original fabric for the wearable slouch measurement device
Keira soldering wires
The two spheres with most electronics in place
Connor working on one of the spheres
The sensors lined up on a shirt to put the wires in place easily
Ayaan working on the code for the slouch measurement
The original fabric for the wearable slouch measurement device
IMUs in line on fabric before getting attached to a shirt
Benji wearing the sensors along his back for calibrating and testing
Jack and Ayaan working on getting the snowman to copy Benji's posture

My sister currently does physical therapy to strengthen her back muscles and correct her posture, which is harming her back. Her condition is not due to slouching while staring at a tiny screen, but it has the same symptoms as someone who does. She used to wear a back brace, but by having a brace support her nearly the entire day, her body became over-reliant on it and weaker. This led to short-term fixes if wearing the brace, but prevented any long-term healing. This over-reliance on external support is a common clinical challenge; while a brace can provide short-term relief, it often bypasses the natural lumbopelvic rhythm, or the critical coordination between the pelvis and the lumbar spine required for true healing.

Posture Pet is a pet snowman that mimics your slouch by bending over, based on data from devices the user wears. The idea is that the sight of their pet slouching encourages the user to correct their posture. By fixing the problem themselves over time, the user will achieve a long-lasting improvement in posture through stronger back muscles and greater posture awareness. Unlike a passive brace, Posture Pet focuses on improving voluntary control. By providing immediate visual feedback, we help the user develop greater awareness of their movement patterns, which is essential for neuromuscular retraining.

The snowman pet was designed in OnShape and features four servos, giving it four degrees of freedom to mimic a slouch better. The wearable slouch-measuring device uses four IMUs and a couple of ESP32s. The snowman then uses the wearable's data to mirror the user's slouch using its servo motors. All of the IMUs place themselves relative to the uppermost one. A line is drawn connecting them, which shows the bend in someone's back. The ESP32s then send information about the angle between adjacent IMUs, and the servos in the snowman rotate to match the bend.

Our team's largest challenge with the snowman was figuring out how to make it bend over if it were made of three balls stacked vertically. Even after the team thought they had figured it out, the snowman's hemispheres still scratched against each other. A major limitation was the 3D printers. Many prints failed for no reason halfway through, requiring some innovation on the fly to adapt to the new circumstances. On the programming side, there were struggles and failures. We attempted to add a speaker to Posture Pet to enable it to communicate with the user, but were unable to acquire a suitable speaker or get it to play sound clearly. With the wearable, the team struggled to find a comfortable material that also supported the required sensors. Additionally, the vest needed to fit tightly around the user to prevent the sensors from moving around and skewing the data.

To fix the snowman bend, we sanded down certain parts of the hemispheres that made up the snowman's three spheres. This eliminated any scratching or collisions, allowing the servo motors to rotate more freely and more accurately. For the wearable, we found an elastic material that stretches to fit tightly around any body. This allows for a universal fit. The team went through various iterations of how to have the user wear the sensors, including attaching the sensors directly to the shirt, using tight fabric bands, and creating a vest and belt.

Next steps for Posture Pet include increasing the snowman's bending range to mimic a human slouch better. Additionally, users may want a pet that is not a snowman. Having other options allows people to choose their favorite and build a stronger connection, thereby increasing their incentive to correct their own posture. By building a stronger emotional connection to the pet, we also work to maximize the likelihood that users will stay engaged for the hours of monitoring needed to see real physical improvement. Hardware upgrades, such as larger, higher-resolution screens, would also improve Posture Pet. Finally, a more comfortable slouch-measuring wearable that can be worn without having to remember it's there would be a substantial upgrade over the Posture Pet and increase its usability.

At the end of the day, a brace teaches your muscles to be lazy, but Posture Pet is a supportive friend who teaches you to be mindful. We don’t want to fix our users’ posture for them; we want to give them the tools to fix it themselves, one snowman at a time.