The workshop I have been working towards with great anticipation finally happened! I couldn’t have done it without the help of Verity, my colleagues from Open Bionics and awesome interns Beverley and Barney, and we can’t say thank you enough for the generosity of those who joined us yesterday, offering their time and thoughts. So here is a brief overview with my thoughts on the day.

We started off with introductions, to know a bit more about each other: at this point I was really interested in hearing a bit from each participant about their expectations from the day, and it was also important that really explained why this workshop was organised - truthfully, yesterday was more about what people were keen to offer us - their opinions - and we are grateful. It was about getting a great group of people together to tell us what they think about current prosthetic hands, what they like and dislike about prosthetics they have tried and/or own, their experience with the process of being fitted and attaining a prosthesis, rehabilitation after an amputation.

We wanted to know what they think of current Open Bionics’ prototypes and how we can improve what we have so far to develop with a better knowledge of what people want. We were given extremely valuable insight into what it is like to go through different processes: from being told during pregnancy that your child will be born without a hand, being born without a hand, to being in your 60’s and having both hands amputated. Each person’s experience with prosthetics is a unique one.

I am interested in, and happy with the realisation that a unique experience translates into a unique need. It is that much more obvious with a number of people in one room, trying things out together and exploring in their individual ways. Everyone’s requests, wishes, motivations are different. So, we listened. That was what I wanted: to test our developments on more than one person at once, with people from all ages and particular circumstances. We were lucky to get a generous group of people together, really cooperative, well-behaved, enthusiastic children, who were happy to give us all the negative criticism we asked for, that we need to develop a better prosthesis. Positive criticism is tremendously welcome and motivating, but knowing what we need to improve has a huge impact on future decision-making.

There were three different activities and spaces for people to engage with. We split participants into three small groups, so everyone got to try everything and we could all talk quite a lot with each person at a time. Jonathan (mechanical engineer) and Olly (software engineer) set up our hand prototype in the Pervasive Media Studio’s meeting room, and tested it with the participants. Patrick (electronics engineer) and I tested the haptic feedback system we have been developing for the first time, in the PM Studio’s comfy area (it has couches). Finally, Verity (PM Studio’s producer) conducted the Impossible Hand Workshop in the Events space. To put it simply perhaps I should just say - the workshop took over the studio. It was great!

A word to you, kind participants! It is so valuable to hear you say what you want! That was a lot of information to take in, we documented feedback in a variety of ways, as you know - questionnaires, interviews, open activities. We also have 3D scans of some of you. This morning I met with my Open Bionics colleagues and we went through all that information together and had a nice chat about what each of us learned yesterday. Gathering and organising all those things will take a bit of time and soon enough I will write about our findings in more detail! I look forward to sharing more photos and Joff Winterhart’s beautiful illustrations of our day! For now I really just wanted to say thank you again, I feel privileged to have met you all, to have helped facilitate a space to talk and grateful for the experiences you shared with us. It was very informative and useful but really touching too. Thank you :)