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Dr. Osler to Present at TEDx Stowe

Dr Osler Presents at TEDx Stowe on Active Sitting

It’s happening! We’re proud to announce that Dr. Osler will be presenting at TEDx, Stowe.

We know that active sitting is an “idea worth spreading,” but to be invited to share our story and ideas on a TED stage is an exciting opportunity to spread the idea of active sitting to a much wider audience.

What is TED? The first TED talk was given 35 years ago, and TED has now grown into a cultural phenomenon. TED has become a marketplace for ideas, an agora of the digital age where literally everyone can see and be seen. Some talks have been viewed 40 million times. TED is more than the agora, however, because every TED talk goes up on YouTube, where it attains a sort of “YouTube immortality”.

Practically speaking, each TED event is a series of short presentations focused on topics – originally “Technology Entertainment and Design” but now expanded to many genres – that are considered “ideas worth spreading.” TEDx are smaller events, hosted by different communities to “discover ideas and spark conversations” at a more local level, like, say, Stowe, Vermont.

On the TEDx Stowe stage we’re hoping to spark a conversation about active sitting in schools, and how with a little innovation, it can be done cheap, fast, and effective. If you’d like a copy of the brochure describing our TEDx talk, you can download it here. And, if you think your kid’s school would be interested in a virtually cost-free approach to providing active sitting for their students, get in touch with us. We’re eager to use the power of the internet to distribute the file that will let any school, anywhere, “print” as many of active button chairs as they wish. For free.

Although the TEDxStowe event immediately sold out its 450 tickets there’s no need to fret. All the TEDxStowe talks will be up on YouTube soon. Check back after the May 9th event – we’ll be sharing our talk when it goes live!

UPDATE: Click to see the video of Dr. Osler’s TEDx presentation. | For more information on the ButtOn Chair project, please visit, buttonchairs.org.

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3 comments

Turner Osler

Turner Osler

Delighted that you think our ButtOn Chair may be a hit with your family. You can download the .dxf file that a CNC router uses directly from the ButtOn Chair website: ButtOnchairs.org
With luck students at Dartmouth will find their way to better sitting as well. Please feel free to share our .dxf file.

Turner Osler

Turner Osler

Figuring that our ButtOn chairs might find there way into high schools, and knowing that some high school kids are pretty big, we do have a large version of our ButtOn chair that turns out to fit most adults. The seat height ranges from 23″ down to, well, as short as you want to cut the legs to, down to 13″, small enough for most kids, actually. Because adults are heavier we recommend using a lacrosse ball rather than an tennis ball, but no other modification is required. We’ve not trialed our chairs with college kids, but I think they might enjoy them.
Our goal with this project is to get as many people sitting actively as possible. Kid’s don’t have advocates, so they are the focus of our attention, but we’re happy to provide the CNC router file for this chair to anyone who wishes to make chairs for themselves and we hope for others as well; sort of a “pay it forward model”. Our only request is that chairs created using our design and CNC router file not be sold for profit.
So, if you’d like our digital file to make chairs, send us an email; we’re eager to get the world sitting better.

-Dr. Turner Osler

Lauren Ferris

Lauren Ferris

I first saw your chair in Uwe Mester’s Feldenkrais class in Burlington. I am super interested in the plywood version of the chair, and have found a way to have a few built for me and my family. The head of the Dartmouth woodworking shop is willing to cut the forms out on the shop’s CNC router. My husband would put them together.

Is that data accessible from you? If the chair is headed for someone other than a younger student, will it still work as a good sitting option, and would there be a charge?

(I’m thinking it might be kind of great for Dartmouth students to see the chair since they have to spend so much time on their butts.)

Thanks!

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