Research Mentor Information
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Primary Research Mentor Name: Taylor Higgins
Research Mentor Preferred Pronouns: She/her
When potential research assistants are reaching out via email, what is your preferred honorific?: Dr.
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated): th22u@fsu.edu
Position Title: Faculty
FSU College (if applicable): FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
FSU Department or Non-FSU Organization Affiliation: Mechanical Engineering
Headshot (optional): https://cre.fsu.edu/system/files/webform/urop_project_proposal_portal/7946/Headshot.jpg

Additional Research Mentor(s)
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Overall Project Details
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Title of the Project: Longitudinal Study of Human Motor Learning Through Unicycling Skill Acquisition
Project Keywords: Motor learning, human robot interaction, human subject research, unicycling
Are you currently looking for research assistants?: No
Number of Research Assistants Needed : 2
Relevant Research Assistant Major(s):
Mechanical, electrical, or computer engineering. May be open to other technical/medical majors.

Project Location:: AME Building (2003 Levy Ave. Tallahasse, FL)
If the project location is off campus, does the research assistant(s) need to provide their own transportation?: Yes
Please select the choice that most accurately describes your expectations for the research assistant(s):: In-person
Approximately how many hours a week would the research assistant(s) need to work?: 5-10 (negotiable)
Roughly what time frame do you expect research assistant(s) to work?: During business hours
Overall Research Project Description:
Technologies like rehabilitation exoskeletons aim to help humans to regain motor skills that have been lost because of injury or disease. One skill of particular interest is to re-train how to walk. Walking is a challenging dynamic task involving multiple degrees-of-freedom needing to coordinate in order to achieve forward movement without falling. In order to study how humans learn to perform tasks like this, we are studying the biomechanics and motor learning involved in the development of a similarly dynamic and tricky task – learning to ride a unicycle. We plan to develop a human subject experiment where we will collect human motion capture and other biomechanics-related signals as subjects learn to ride a unicycle under various conditions. For instance, we might try to partner with the FSU Flying High Circus to determine if motor learning improves with coaching versus without. We may eventually seek to develop a robotically powered unicycle so that we can study the effect of robotic assistance during the development of the skill. The idea is that with this platform, we can answer questions about robotically assisted motor learning that will be useful across many robotic assistance platforms such as exoskeletons.

Research Tasks:
Human motion capture. Data collection. Literature review. Human-subject experimentation. Human biomechanics. Some modeling of dynamic systems.

Skills that research assistant(s) may need::
No need to know how to ride a unicycle! I do need someone who is excited to learn about human motor learning and who can think critically about how to develop a well-controlled human subject experiment. We may also collect some preliminary data to help us develop the experiment.

Mentoring Philosophy:
As a mentor, I work best with students who are inquisitive, pro-active, and problem solvers. I do not like to micro-manage. I see my job as being a resource to my research students, helping to solve problems when stuck, providing overall vision, and occasionally giving nudges in the right direction. I see my students as the expert in their given project, and I expect students to go learn skills, find possible solutions, try many things that may or may not work, and ultimately to come to research meetings ready to teach me all the cool things they’ve learned, tried, and developed. I aim to creating a safe environment in which mentees feel that is acceptable to fail and learn from their mistakes. I do expect mentees to take ownership of their work and have accountability for their effort in the project. Overall, I want to do fun engineering work that makes a difference in human lives, and I want my students to feel empowered to do difficult things and solve challenging problems.

Please provide a link to your publications, a video clip, or a website for your research project (if applicable):: https://tgambon.wixsite.com/taylorgambon
Please add any additional information here (if applicable)::
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UROP Program Elements
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Mentor Handbook, FAQs, and Communication: Yes
UROP Performance Evaluation: Yes
Materials Grant: Yes
UROP Poster Presentation: Yes

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Year: 2023
update url: https://cre.fsu.edu/urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal?element_parents=elements/research_mentor_information/headshot_optional_&ajax_form=1&_wrapper_format=drupal_ajax&token=kh_taAj71UNhPQV1xiixd4v2nqVHhPqTKa83ubDTcuE