How is Your Computer Posture?Category: Science & Technology
Posted: July 6, 2011 08:15PM
How are you sitting right now? Is it really comfortable, or are you bending like you know you shouldn’t? If you’re not sure you can ask the first place winners of the 2009 Christopher Columbus Awards Competition, a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program. The four middle school students won the competition by studying the posture of fellow students and employees in their neighborhood, and then making a device to monitor and alert you of your poor posture. What they found was 80% of office workers and 75% of students were incorrectly sitting at their workstations. To improve those numbers they invented and tested the “Posture Pad,” a seat pad that vibrates or makes a sound when you are not sitting correctly. They received a $25,000 grant to assist their efforts, not only with the pad but also to educate their community on ergonomics and posture. Now they will be presenting their work at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.