Flinders’ Dr David Hobbs is a talented biomedical engineer—but it’s not his scientific brain or his engineering skills that make him or the Orby project special. It’s his ability to bring people together, to draw on and seek out expert knowledge around him, and to listen to the needs of the people who will use the product he is creating. His first instinct is to surround himself with a great team.

He enlisted the help of seasoned supervisors: Professor Karen Reynolds (biomedical engineer), Professor Susan Hillier (neuroscience and rehabilitation clinician), and Dr Ray Russo (paediatric rehabilitation clinician). He also harnessed the skills of both gaming and industrial designers: Associate Professor Sandy Walker, Dr Brett Wilkinson, Brad Wesson, Max Hughes and Martin Henschke.

The way Orby took on its spherical shape was born from collaboration too. Four students in UniSA’s Master of Design (Industrial Design) were given the brief to create a controller for David’s unique target audience of serious gamers. Each of the four students created vastly different controllers, the best two—a sphere and a ‘U’ shape—advanced to focus group testing. Max Hughes’ spherical design won. But that was just the start. Failure is a by-product of creation. The team would go through many versions of Orby and the OrbIT system until they were ready for tests and trials.