Dean Kamen - Personal Life

Personal Life

His residence is a hexagonal, shed style mansion he dubbed Westwind, located in Bedford, New Hampshire, just outside of the larger city of Manchester. The house has at least four different levels and is very eclectically conceived, with such things as hallways resembling mine shafts, 1960s novelty furniture, a collection of vintage wheelchairs, spiral staircases and at least one secret passage, an observation tower, a fully equipped machine shop, and a huge cast-iron steam engine which once belonged to Henry Ford built into the center atrium of the house (which is actually small in comparison), which Kamen is working to convert into a Stirling engine-powered kinetic sculpture. Kamen owns two helicopters, which he regularly uses to commute to work, and had a hangar built into the house as well.

He is the main subject of Code Name Ginger: the Story Behind Segway and Dean Kamen's Quest to Invent a New World, a nonfiction narrative book by journalist Steve Kemper published by Harvard Business School Press in 2003 (in paperback as Reinventing the Wheel).

His company, DEKA, annually creates intricate mechanical presents for him. Recently, the company created a robotic chess player, which is a mechanical arm attached to a chess board, as well as a vintage-looking computer with antique wood, and a converted typewriter as a keyboard. In addition, DEKA has recently received funding from DARPA to work on a brain-controlled prosthetic limb called the Luke Arm.

Kamen owns and pilots two Raytheon 390 Beechcraft Premier I jets.

Kamen is also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board.

Dean of Invention, a TV show on Planet Green starring Kamen and correspondent Joanne Colan, in which they investigate new technologies, premiered on October 22, 2010.