1995 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize Winner

Photo by Jeff Tinsely

"As long as I can remember, I was always taking things apart," notes Thomas Massie—inaugural winner of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. As Massie got older, he eventually began to put these things together and learned to build—producing mechanical robots from household items and even an automatic plant-watering device. As an adult, he continued this passion, building a machine that simulated the native Andean hand-weaving process and the successful PHANTOM 3-D Touch interface for computers.

The PHANTOM—Massie's most notable invention—is a haptic computer interface that enables users to "feel" physical objects in cyberspace. By inserting their fingers into swiveling thimbles that connect to mechanical arms, the user is able to sense the shape, size and consistency of objects on a computer screen. The PHANTOM allows designers and engineers to create and interact with objects in 3-D without actually building them, and can even train doctors to perform surgery on "virtual patients." Massie collaborated with MIT professor Dr. Kenneth Salisbury at the Artificial Intelligence Lab to develop and build the prototype.

Massie started SensAble Technologies in 1993, from his dorm room at MIT, to market the PHANTOM. The company currently has a staff of seventy people and works with clients such as Disney, Boeing and Addidas, among others. Other applications of the PHANTOM are the FreeForm™ Modeling System and the Ghost Software Developer's Toolkit, which both aid in creating virtual models.

Earning his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at MIT (1996), Massie had a rich experience at the university from joining the solar car club to winning the 2.70 Student Design Competition and the $10K Business Plan Competition (which is now $50K).

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