The Olympics is all about pushing the frontiers of human performance. As some athletes prepared for the Paris 2024 games, that included using a brand new technology developed at MIT.nano.
The technology was created by Striv (pronounced “strive”), a startup whose founder gained access to the cutting-edge labs and fabrication equipment at MIT.nano as a part of the START.nano accelerator program. Striv’s tactile sensing technology matches into the inserts of shoes and, when combined with algorithms that crunch that tactile data, can precisely track force, movement, and form. Runners including USA marathoner Clayton Young, Jamaican track and field Olympian Damar Forbes, and former Olympic marathoner Jake Riley have tried Striv’s device.
“I’m excited in regards to the potential of Striv’s technology,” Riley says. “It’s on a very good path to revolutionize how we train and stop injuries. After testing the sensors and seeing the information firsthand, I’m convinced of its value.”
For Striv founder Axl Chen, the 2024 games are the right opportunity to point out that the product can assist athletes at the very best level. But Chen also believes their product can assist many non-Olympians.
“We expect the Paris 2024 Olympics will probably be a extremely interesting opportunity for us to check the product with the athletes training for it,” Chen says. “After that, we’ll offer this to most people to assist everyone get the identical sort of support and training advice as skilled athletes.”
Putting yourself in another person’s shoes
Chen was working in a robotics lab at Tsinghua University in China when he began using tactile sensors. Over the following two years, he experimented with ways to make the sensors more flexible and cost-effective.
“I believe a whole lot of people have already explored vision and language, but tactile sensing as a way of perceiving the world seemed more open to me,” Chen says. “I believed tactile sensors and AI could make for powerful latest products.”
The primary space Striv entered was virtual reality (VR) gaming. The corporate created a shoe with embedded sensors that would capture users’ body motions in real-time by combining the sensor data with regular VR hand controllers. Striv even sold about 300 pairs of its shoes to interested customers all over the world.
Striv has also gotten interest from corporations within the medical, robotics, and automotive fields, which was each a blessing and a curse due to need for startups to concentrate on one specific customer early on.
Chen says moving into the START.nano program in 2023 was an inflection point for the corporate.
“I just about didn’t apply to anything,” Chen says. “I’m really curious about this technology, and I knew if I could do research at MIT, it might be really helpful to push this technology forward.”
Since then, Chen has leveraged MIT’s advanced nanofabrication equipment, laboratories, and expertise to iterate on different designs and construct prototypes. That has included working in MIT.nano’s Immersion Lab, which features precise motion capture devices and other sensing technologies, like VO2 intake measurements and details force evaluation of runners’ steps on a treadmill.
Striv’s team has also received support from the MIT Enterprise Mentoring Service (VMS) and is a component of the MIT Industrial Liaison Program’s Startup Exchange program, which has helped the team hone in on athletes because the beachhead marketplace for their technology.
“It’s remarkable that MIT is supporting us a lot,” Chen says. “We regularly get asked why they’re doing this [for non-students], and we are saying MIT is committed to pushing technology forward.”
Striv’s sensing solution is made up of two layers of flexible electrodes with a cloth in between that may create different electrical characteristics corresponding to the force it comes under. That material has been at the center of Chen’s research at MIT.nano: He’s attempting to make it more durable and precise by adding nanostructures and making other tweaks.
Striv can also be developing AI algorithms that use the sensor data to infer full body motion.
“We will quantify the force they apply to the bottom and the efficiency of their movements,” Chen explains. “We will see in the event that they’re leaning too far forward, or their knees are too high. That will be really useful in determining in the event that they’re improving or not.”
Technology for the masses
As soon as Chen began interviewing runners, he knew Striv could help them.
“The alternatives for athletes are either to go to a extremely expensive biomechanics lab or use a wearable that is capable of track your heart rate but doesn’t give insights into your performance,” Chen explains. “For instance, when you’re running, how is your form? How are you going to improve it? Runners are really curious about their form. They care about how high their knees go, how high they’re jumping, how much force they’re putting into the bottom.”
Striv has tested its product with around 50 skilled athletes thus far and worked with Young within the leadup to the Olympics. Chen also has an eye fixed on helping more casual runners.
“We also need to bring this to serious runners that are not skilled,” Chen says. “I do know a whole lot of people in Boston who run day-after-day. That is where it will go next.”
As the corporate grows and collects more data, Chen believes Striv will have the ability to offer personalized plans for improving performance and avoiding injuries across a variety of various activities.
“We check with a whole lot of coaches, and we expect there’s potential to bring this to a whole lot of different sports,” Chen says. “Golfers, hikers, tennis players, cyclists, ski and snowboarders. We expect this could possibly be really useful for all of them.”
