Category: Social

Another great annual lab ski day! This year we went to Solitude with some uncertain conditions in the forecast. We always plan our annual ski day in the Spring, around late April, when there's a good chance for a warm sunny spring skiing day. This year, the forecast called for cold rain! We went up anyway, and fortunately the forecast was wrong! It was light snow most of the morning, blue skies in the afternoon, and then it started snowing again after lunch. It turned out to be surprisingly good snow for such a late season storm. We had some pizza, beer, and shots (?!) at The Thirsty Squirrel bar in Solitude Village. A great time as always!

Happy Holidays from the PM&R Family! Each winter the PM&R faculty and staff gather to celebration another year of success. This year, we reflected on our impressive research growth, including new faculty members, new research space, and new funded projects. Here's to a great 2023!

Today we celebrated another great year together in the Utah NeuroRobotics Lab! And we couldn't have asked for better weather! It was 70 and sunny on the slopes and most of us skied in a t-shirt. After a couple of laps down the mountain, we brought out the grill and had a cookout on the ski "beach." A great annual tradition to celebrate our successes, strengthen our team, spark new ideas, and to just relax in the mountains.

Today we officially welcome Monika Buczak, Princess (Tara) Zamani and Carlee Hardy to the lab.

• Monika is pursuing her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and will be leading the development of new measures of hand dexterity and thought-based control of adaptive sports technology.
• Tara is pursuing her M.S. project in Electrical & Computer Engineering and will be working to develop novel neural features for estimating motor intent from implanted peripheral nerve interfaces.
• Carlee is pursuing her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and will be exploring how we can modify fingertip grip to improve dexterity.

The Utah NeuroRobotics lab is excited to officially have these three join our team, and we look forward to seeing their exciting projects develop!

Great showing at our lab holiday party! Thankful to have such a fun lab environment.

Today we officially welcome Brandon Baum, Shaila Collins and Connor Olsen to the lab. After a fun summer rotation, we're excited to have them join us full time this Fall.

• Brandon is pursuing his M.S. thesis in Mechanical Engineering and will be leading the design and validation of a new sensorized object for rapid, quantifiable and systematic measures of hand dexterity.
• Shaila is pursuing her M.S. project in Electrical & Computer Engineering and will be exploring how hand kinematics change after neurological impairments such as stroke or spinal cord injury.
• Connor is pursuing his Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering and will be exploring how semi-autonomous bionic devices can be used to enhance dexterity and reduce cognitive load.

The Utah NeuroRobotics lab is excited to officially have these three join our team, and we look forward to their exciting projects!

The NeuroRobotics social committee hosted a summer games tournament where lab members competed across various games throughout the summer to see who will be crowned the ultimate winner! Today we finished out the tournament with a double-elimination bracket of ladder toss. Matt took first place, Shaila came in second, Dillon got third, and Adrian finished in fourth. This brings us to the final standings... drum roll please!

FINAL STANDINGS
1. Dillon Crytser (10 points)
2. Matt Ludlow (7 points)
2. Jake George (7 points)
3. Wyatt Fullmer (4 points)
4. Ruby Law (3 points)
4. Caleb Thomson (3 points)
4. Shaila Collins (3 points)
5. Kennedy Powell (2 points)
6. Adrian Porras (1 point)

Congratulations to Dillon Crytser - the 2021 NeuroRobotics Summer Games Champion!

Today we held a lab dinner to celebrate recent accomplishments and share some of our highlights from the summer:

Shaila was thankful for all the fun social events - especially the smores night - and the delicious (and often free) food in our building. Dillon highlighted how much he enjoyed spending the summer in Utah and making new friends in the lab. Matt joked about staying up late to run a 3D-print with Dillon, which ultimately failed minutes after they left! Caleb's highlight of the summer was his first-author manuscript getting accepted (woohoo!) and Abby Citterman shared her excitement to be writing her first manuscript. Abby Harrison reflected on how much fun she had learning to soldier in the lab this summer and Wyatt's highlight was when he finally finished a new prototype after almost 80 hours of construction! And all that hard work isn't without reward; as Kennedy pointed out, the best part of the summer for her was finding out the lab has a massage chair! Adrian reflected on how fun it's been to watch the lab grow and to be apart of that growth. And to that, Brandon joked about his first trip to the lab when he waited on the elevator and walked through the building alongside a stranger, only to realize later that they shared the same destination and that stranger was his new labmate Adrian!

As for me, I'm grateful to have such an amazing group of people to work with every day and, like Adrian said, it's been an amazing to watch our lab grow. It's been a fun and productive summer - and we're all excited to keep the momentum going together!

Today we continued the the NeuroRobotics Lab summer games tournament with a 4-hole game of mini golf.  The roof-top patio of the Craig H. Neilsen Hospital has lots of patio furniture, yard games (including a putting green!) and amazing views of the Wasatch Mountains. Jake George took first place in the mini golf tournament, followed closely by Caleb Thomson (second), Kennedy Powell (third) and Wyatt Fullmer (fourth).

This brings the current standings for the summer games tournament to:

1. Dillon Crytser (8 points)
2. Jake George (7 points)
3. Wyatt Fullmer (4 points)
4. Ruby Law (3 points)
4. Caleb Thomson (3 points)
4. Matt Ludlow (3 points)
5. Kennedy Powell (2 points)