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A London-based robotics engineer has told how she uses her ADHD to power her imaginative creations.
From high-tech nail extensions that connect to webpages to clothing that integrates with weather forecasts, Aneni Bambara-Abbana’s work aims to inspire the next generation, demonstrating that technology can be “fun.”
He also said that his ADHD has helped him create some of his creations, such as acrylic nails attached to credit cards.
The 32-year-old creative technologist has harbored engineering ambitions since the age of five, inspired by the wonder of walking dolls.
This early fascination led him to carefully dismantle household appliances, motivated by a desire to understand their inner workings.
Despite achieving top grades in her GCSE science subjects, Aneni was shocked when her A-level results meant she was denied entry to a robotics engineering degree at the University of the West of England.
Still determined to achieve her childhood goal, she wrote a heartfelt letter to the Dean and was offered a place on the Foundation Engineering course, which she started in 2012, before reaching her degree the following year.
She said she was the only black woman on the course, which made her feel “isolated” and almost caused her to drop out, until she was inspired to pursue it by women she met at an engineering awards ceremony.
From there, he began exploring wearable technology, including how circuit boards could be embedded in nails and linked to a webpage – and which, if regulations allowed, could even be used to make payments.
Since graduating, she has shared her innovations online, founded The Takeover Foundation, and begun developing smart clothes that can be scanned and linked to weather forecasts, showing youth – especially women – that engineering can be “creative.”
Ms Bambara-Abban told PA Real Life: “I always thought ‘Why is technology so boring, so dry, why can’t it be fun?’
“And at that time, I was very influenced by Japanese culture and I would get nail extensions with designs of my favorite characters.
“Furthermore, even when undiagnosed adhd At the time, I was always forgetting things, so I constantly thought to myself ‘What if I had a way to put a chip to my credit card, my room key, or my uni pass that I would never lose?’
“Then I came up with the idea of combining both semi-permanent nail extensions with one circuit.”
Speaking about the doll that inspired her lifelong fascination with engineering, Ms Bambara-Abban said: “The doll was black, which was already quite rare in the 90s… And then the boy showed it to my family as it spun and twisted, I was just amazed.
“I can still remember it so clearly, like it was yesterday, I was just like ‘What kind of magic is this? How can I be a magician?’ As it was.”
After studying at university, she attended an awards ceremony at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, where she was inspired by the women she met in the technology sector.
From there, she began exploring ways to make engineering fun and more attractive to other young women, with the hope that it would inspire more people to consider pursuing courses similar to hers. One of those ways was through wearable technology.
After some brainstorming and consultation with electronics experts, she realized theoretically that by taking advantage of NFC (near-field communication), she might be able to use a chip from a credit card, attach it to a nail, and “hypothetically it could still work”.
So Ms. Bambara-Abban began working on a circuit design to repurpose NFC technology into wearable technology.
She explained: “The first initial prototypes were done on breadboards, which are reusable construction bases for making temporary electronic circuits without soldering – it looks like a rectangular board with lots of little holes in it.”
They then sent the design to an electronics factory in China to miniaturize it by printing “very nice circuits on thin flexible surfaces,” which would be the perfect texture to integrate into acrylic nails while being able to curve to the nail’s natural shape.
“It’s quite common in engineering” to outsource manufacturing and work with a team, Ms. Bambara-Abban said — inventors rarely create actual finished products alone.
It was also much cheaper to outsource it – Ms Bambara-Abban said it would cost her “thousands”, but the factory could produce the same item for 30p a piece.
She added, “The first completed nail extensions were press-ons with a range of my favorite designs that I knew young women would love – you scanned it and it would link to any webpage you wanted, you could even program them to open your Instagram.”
They also linked it to a “dummy bank card” with a “dummy bank”, allowing it to be used for payments “fictitiously”.
To do this, she placed the flexible chip – which works similarly to smart rings and smart watches – to the nail bed, and then applied nail gel on top to “lock it in” and ensure it wasn’t visible to others.
However, they soon realized that despite being technically feasible, it would not be practical in everyday life due to strict financial regulations as well as ethical concerns.
Aneni said: “I often like to recall a quote from one of the greatest franchises of all time – Spider-Man – which says ‘With great power, comes great responsibility.’ Even though I can do something as an engineer, it doesn’t mean I should do it…
“Until the correct security and compliance protocols are completed, I will not be fully linking the circuit (to my real bank account) or making it publicly available in the near future.”
She graduated from her robotics degree in 2018, and now shares her projects on her Instagram page @thetechover – which has over 6,000 followers.
Ms. Bambara-Abban also launched The Takeover Foundation, which aims to inspire the next generation of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students, particularly those from underserved backgrounds.
Since then he has visited schools around the world from the UK to the Philippines and Nigeria to show young people what engineering makes possible.
“I feel like one of the major things that stops women from getting into and staying in engineering is imposter syndrome, and sadly, being a male-dominated industry, it still makes them feel like they are alone or unseen,” she said.
“But times are changing. I want to show that engineering is for everyone, regardless of gender.”