Puffin innovations- How a Patient is improving wheelchair puff and sip functionalities to all users

Adriana Mallozzi was born with cerebral palsy and was first introduced to a power wheelchair, covered with unique technologies, at age 9, leading her to embrace technology at a very young age rendering her increasingly independent. By using pressurized air, she could open the door to her apartment by simply blowing on a tube connected to the remote control, move her chair by controlling a joystick with her mouth and so much more. The day-to-day struggles also pushed Adriana to become as inventive as possible, due to the need to perform her routines and tasks as independently as possible. This also lead her to understand the luck she had to be able to have the time, money, and the right people around her, with some of her friends and acquaintances not having such technology available to them.

This reality shock motivated her to find a solution to address the needs of diverse users, which need sophistication in the sip and puff solutions of their wheelchairs, by integrating artificial intelligence into their system and adapting it to an individual’s needs, all while being at an affordable cost. To achieve this goal, Adriana created Puffin Innovations!

At the center of this is the Puff/sip functionality, where the Puff is used as the left click and the sip as a right click. This is where Puffin Innovations aims to achieve an option to customize this functionality. while taking into consideration that the user might have more or less sensitivity due to alternating lung capacity.

For their first inventions, Puffin created a Bluetooth-connected device -with the help of MIT students and sponsors’ equipment donations- fit for android phones, that people with disabilities can control with their mouth, allowing them greater access to computers and mobile phones. But this is only the beginning!

Learn more about this solution here https://puffininno.com/
This was adapted from https://medium.com/@PerryGrossman/puffin-sip-interview-with-adriana-mall... and https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/10/08/how-innovation-can-break...

The images were taken from https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/10/08/how-innovation-can-break... and https://medium.com/@PerryGrossman/puffin-sip-interview-with-adriana-mall... as we do not own any of them.