︎ORIGIN OF AI
Hi! I’m Katie Barnwell, and I’m a data scientist who loves to dance and hates feeling like my bra is a cage. While working at tech companies like tumblr and eBay, I’d bring an extra bra to work and change at lunch for the sliver of relief that came with the redistribution of my boob weight.
My obsession with the “bra problem” (a complex physics problem that society treats as an aesthetic problem) started at age 12 with my first sports bra. Already 4 years into my softball pitching career, I couldn’t believe how much the bra restricted my movement.
My obsession with the “bra problem” (a complex physics problem that society treats as an aesthetic problem) started at age 12 with my first sports bra. Already 4 years into my softball pitching career, I couldn’t believe how much the bra restricted my movement.
In high school, I divided my spare time between softball and the boatloads of homework for my honors math/chemistry/physics classes. As I grew older (and took harder and harder math classes), I learned that exercise is the only antidepressant that works for me. This poses a problem because I express myself through my clothes, but all sports bras are ugly and smush big boobs together to create the dreaded watermelon boob. I hate it that I can’t feel beautiful while I’m exercising!
I started taking computer science at Brown and since graduating in 2013, I’ve worked professionally as a data scientist. The discomfort of wearing a bra all day never stopped annoying me. I couldn’t believe that even though I had a software engineer’s disposable income, the only way I could “throw money at the problem” was to get breast reduction SURGERY. But surgery seems really scary! Who wants knives near their most valuable stuff?
In 2019, when I realized my 30E Cooper’s ligaments were on their last legs, I decided to pursue the bra problem full time. I filed my first patent that September, and my second just a year later in 2020. I have been dancing happily and refining the 3D printed AI bra since then.
In 2019, when I realized my 30E Cooper’s ligaments were on their last legs, I decided to pursue the bra problem full time. I filed my first patent that September, and my second just a year later in 2020. I have been dancing happily and refining the 3D printed AI bra since then.
