And so this is Christmas....

Or it will be shortly, and I thought I'd post one more time before the Christmas break and the start of 2014. I had intended to end the year by coming to come conclusions about the whole K005 project, and what we learned from it - but I'll leave that to the New Year.

Instead, the classic way to end the year is with a Year in Review type post! I'm sure you'll be thrilled. It's be an interesting year and no mistake, and as 2013 turns into 2014, there's a sense of a change in eras, for a few reasons. Alexis Lefevre, one of my PhD students, has just successfully passed his viva (congratulations, Alexis!), exploring how age, object size and texture impacted the reach-to-grasp action. He did a really nice piece of work, though to date we've only published one paper from it so far - but if you're interested it's available Open Access via PLOS One:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0069040

It was another piece of Alexis' design that gave me the idea for the prototype manipulandum I was showing off not so long ago - his system of interchangeable and end caps attached to a force sensor, allowing rapid variation of size and texture, is quite ingenious. I'll talk you through it, some time: there are a few interesting results, but I don't want to show off too much before we find out where we are with publications. Mark Mon-Williams and I will hopefully be completing the revised version and wiring it up to Opotrak in the New Year.

The massively talented Ian Flatters, another of my PhD students, is now finishing his time with us - off to take a well-deserved place with a surgical tech company, and awaiting viva. But he's still in Leeds, and will be getting a day a month as a visiting researcher, so it isn't goodbye quite yet.

On top of that, Together Through Play ends in about week - and since neither myself, Angharad or Anne-Marie will be doing any more work before the new year, it is, too all intents and purposes, finished. I've just got to right the report, now!

So, there is more of a sense of wheels turning, and a changing of the guard than usual this year. But of course, that just means new things to look forward to, and I'm hopeful that 2014 is going to be a cracker. Mark Mon-Williams gave a rousing speech to our PACLab (Perception Action Cognition Lab) meeting on Wednesday, and as I wind down to take a break, there's a whole bunch of exciting stuff coming online in the new year. Here's a few:

1) Getting the manipulandum up and running. That'll be a good one - I've taken Alexis' design and run with it, and I'm really excited to keep expanding the grip work that Mark and I have been doing. There are some fresh collaborations coming up related to DCD and Spinal Cord Injury. Exciting stuff!

2) Playday 2014: Having missed every Playday during the course of the project, I promised myself we'd do something for 2014, and Leeds Philosopohical and Literary Society have kindly put money towards running an inclusive play event. So, we've assembled a student team, and we're working with Leeds City Council's Breeze initiative to offer something good this year. We have user panels coming up in February - I can't wait!

3) LUDI - I'm part of an EU-funded COST action (Collaboration on Science and Technology), looking at the issue of play for disabled children, bringing together researchers from across Europe - and beyond! I'm really looking forward to it - it feels like there's a lot of opportunity coming up now!
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It's been interesting getting started with the blog, and I'm still finding my feet. Finding time to blog regularly is much harder than I had imagined, but it's a nice opportunity to get my thoughts and reflections down, so I'll be pressing on in the new year. A few things I'd like to cover are the final outcome of K005, findings from Alexis's PhD, the outcomes of K005, and I'd like to reflect a little more on a recent Twitter discussion on Accessibility vs Inclusivity - it's a really interesting debate, and ties in a lot with what we've discovered in K005. That and the manipulandum, of course!

Anyway, have  a great Christmas and a Happy New Year - I'll be back in 2014!