The ability of biotech to completely alter the lives of people excites me. Technology can be applied in so many ways to help people with any sort of disability, from enabling them to feed themselves to helping them move around. With the progression and advancement of technology, even more people will be helped as simple items become easier to produce and more advanced items are developed, such as better prosthetics due to more advanced robotics or cheaper ones by means of three-dimensional printing.
Today we made prototypes of devices or programs to help with different problems. My group made a mini cardboard prototype of a wheelchair with a distance sensor on the back that detected objects behind it. If it was "all clear" behind, the lights on the arm rests shone green, but if an object was close they turned red and if an object was very close they turned blue and a device on the wheelchair back vibrated. At the end of the day we had a guest speaker who talked about how she helps children with disabilities in other countries to lead better lives by using biotech. She told us about how even very simple materials can be used to help someone with a disability. I learned a lot today about how technology from simple to complex can be used to help those in need.
-Katie
