McKechnie Family LIFE Home hosts a Fall Open House
Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2025 • Time: 2:00–5:00 PM
Location: 75 Bailey Drive, Champaign, IL 61820
Theme: Smart Living for Everyone
On October 7, the McKechnie Family LIFE Home welcomed guests to our Fall Open House. Visitors explored the space, met researchers from across campus, and experienced hands-on demonstrations from ongoing research projects at the LIFE Home.
This year, our theme was “Smart Living for Everyone.” We made full use of the LIFE Home’s unique advantage—a fully furnished, apartment-style space rather than a traditional lab—to showcase how smart technologies can enable smart living and support healthy aging, disability, and rehabilitation. In this familiar environment, robots such as the Stretch robot, voice assistants, smart kitchen tools, ambient sensors, and a robotic showerhead for people with disabilities can be integrated naturally in home environments. Open house guests experienced how these technologies support daily routines in a seamless way.
LIFE Home staff, interns, and student researchers from the College of Applied Health Sciences (Human Factors and Aging Lab; Mahajan Lab; Disability, Participation and Quality of Life Research Laby) as well as the Grainger College of Engineering (Monolithic Systems Lab; Human-Centered Autonomy Lab) presented a variety of interdisciplinary research projects with interactive demos, offering visitors a hands-on experience with emerging innovations.
The open house was attended by faculty students, and staff from across campus. Our donors, including Jim and Karen McKechnie, Dan Fisk, and Michael Vitoux, were impressed with the demonstrations and presentations. A group of service providers from the Illinois Assistive Technology Program traveled from Springfield to explore our technologies and discuss collaborations. We also had faculty and students visit from Illinois State University who focus on architecture and design. Our event was held in conjunction with Champaign-Urbana Active Aging Week and we were happy to have community participants as well.
Watch the video below for highlights from the event and stay tuned for more updates on our research and outreach activities.
Thank you to everyone who joined us. If you missed it, we are already planning our spring open house and we look forward to seeing you there!