Seismic™ Powered Clothing is a fusion of apparel and robotics, designed to reduce muscle strain and fatigue by providing the core with extra power and stability. The suit is worn under clothing like a base layer, and is designed to augment human strength to give people a physical advantage in their daily personal lives. The suit mimics human biomechanics to give people intelligent, wearable strength when they need it most. Reacting to the body’s natural movements, the suit provides “strength assist” to complement one's muscles during daily activities like the act of standing up, sitting down or extended standing.

Seismic’s Powered Clothing is not only a completely new category robotics, but is also a new category of apparel. With no similar product predecessors in robotics nor apparel to learn from we had to start each design challenge from scratch. We had two initial target market segments, the aging population and individuals who are living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severe type of muscular dystrophy. Our mission was to not just help users move more easily, but we were driven by what that movement meant to the users and their quality of life - increased confidence, independence and the ability to participate in the community outside of the home.

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At a high level, we developed our prototyping process as three parallel tracks - full scale apparel design and prototypes, mechanical/electrical benchtop technology tests and in-field user testing. All three tracks worked towards reaching product milestones at which point these tracks would be integrated and tested. Each department was actively involved in the integration and testing segment, collaboratively brainstorming improvements to be implemented into the next prototype.

My initial role at Seismic involved product design and physical prototyping and testing. Projects included concept design, prototype builds, and apparel/technology integration design. We were an extremely small team so I was fortunate enough to work on every aspect of the builds, even on areas outside of product design focus. By supporting the mechanical, electrical, biomechanics and apparel design teams on projects, I gained a more robust understanding of our intricate and complex product which better informed my work on subsequent prototype iterations.

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The majority of my work at Seismic is confidential and under NDA.  Project details, case studies and my design process are intentionally omitted for the privacy of Seismic.