This project was to design and prototype a piece of assistive technology. My team was passionate about creating something that could offer greater independence to people who may have difficulty completing everyday tasks on their own. After brainstorming several ideas, we chose to design a robotic system that could fold laundry—specifically, a device that could fold a shirt with the push of a button.

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Our goal was to make a simple, user-friendly prototype that could serve as a foundation for a larger assistive system. We focused on shirt folding since it’s a common household task that can be physically challenging for people with limited mobility. Our team designed and built a mechanical model that simulates the basic folding motion and created the initial code to control the device.

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While our prototype didn’t fully automate the process, we successfully demonstrated how folding motion could be programmed and physically modeled. The frame was entirely 3D printed, and the motion system showed promising results during early testing. We also developed an interface concept to show how a user might interact with the robot in a real-world setting.