.avif)
Listen to this Episode
Watch this Episode
<div id="buzzsprout-player-18572148"></div><script src="https://www.buzzsprout.com/2509152/episodes/18572148-robots-for-good-a-conversation-with-tatum-robotics.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-18572148&player=small" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
Show Notes
Imagine needing another person’s hand just to check the weather, news, or even to listen to a podcast. That’s the everyday reality for many DeafBlind people and the starting point for Samantha Johnson’s bold solution: a soft robotic hand that fingerspells tactile sign language and turns digital text into language you can feel.
We sit down with Samantha to trace the journey from a Northeastern University ASL course to founding Tatum Robotics, a social impact startup bringing assistive devices into real homes. She explains how her team engineered an 18-DOF hand that is both precise and gentle, and why co-designing with DeafBlind users consistently beats feature creep. We are also joined by Jaimi Lard of Tatum Q&A for a live demo of the device and firsthand user feedback.
If you care about accessibility, human-centered design, and robotics for good, this conversation will recalibrate what meaningful inclusion looks like.
Meet the Guests
Samantha Johnson is the founder and CEO of Tatum Robotics, creator of the Tatum1 tactile signing robot, which gives DeafBlind individuals independent access to communication, education, and information through real-time robotic tactile sign translation.
