Don’t judge a man before walking a mile in his moccasins. Also, don’t design healthcare robotics technology before watching live surgeries and following patients in an intensive learning program.

The Accessibility, Rehabilitation and Movement Science, or ARMS, traineeship program from Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University immerses engineering students in medical study to make them better product designers. When these technology students return to their studies, they have experiences with real people to add to their theoretical robotics knowledge, according to Dr. Ayanna Howard (pictured), founder and chief technology officer of Zyrobotics LLC and professor at Georgia Institute of Technology.

“They have a vision of the patient … that they’ve worked with and how he might have struggled with some concept. … And so it gives engineers, scientists, roboticists that power,” said Howard, who spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during an interview at Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Orlando, Florida.

Standards in robotics training

Howard developed ARMS to bring standards to an area of robotics training that had been more or less ad hoc. Robotics students seeking to learn about medical applications might have arranged a day of shadowing a doctor or therapist, for instance. With funding from the National Science Foundation, ARMS offers a much more comprehensive training program.

Last summer, students spent time in clinics and hospitals learning about particular conditions, such as Parkinson’s Disease. “They were fully immersed as if they were a medical resident,” Howard said. Thus educated, they will design robotics technology that is perfectly suited for its target consumers, she added.

Improved accessibility for challenged individuals is also a major goal of Zyrobotics. The company makes robotics technology that allows children with conditions such as autism or motor disabilities to easily use education applications.

“The secret magic of Zyrobotics is to make sure that accessibility is an integral part of the conversation; it’s not an after thought,” Howard concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

Photo: SiliconANGLE