After one week of spring break, the class reassembled on the following Tuesday night to kick-off the Make-a-Thon event happening next week. Unfortunately, I have class during that time every week, so I was not able to attend the event. However, that does not mean that I simply let the week go to waste as I continued to brainstorm on our project.
My twin brother studies art in New York and is an enthusiast of comic book and Japanese manga. During a recent chat with him, I notice that many of the action figures cannot stand by itself as the makeup of the figures has weight emphasized in other areas which make the figures impossible to stand on its own. To overcome this issue, many of the figures either come with a stand or a foot peg to not only increase the surface area but help with the support.
I think that this idea can be apply to our design as we are looking to help prosthetics yoga enthusiast with support especially during frontal plane positions. I have yet to pitch this idea to my team and I cannot wait to hear about their feedback.
Unfortunately, due to a class conflict I was unable to attend the pre-Makethon meeting. In the meantime, I have planned meetings with two different professors who are well accomplished in their areas.
First, a week or so back, my teammate, Maryam and I met with Deanna McDonagh, professor of Art and Design. She was thrilled to view our project ideas and progress and offered a great deal of support to our cause. Her ideation process was incredibly interesting as she had a large amount of ideas that seemed outlandish. Although some of these brainstormed ideas seemed impossible, it did she had no doubt in the possibilities. When speaking further about these beyond creative concepts, Deanna made the point that everything we have today was once considered impossible. Cars that drive themselves, men on the moon, phones that can access any amount of information in seconds were all just ideas that were once scoffed at. Some of the less feasible suggestions that we came up with during our meeting were biodegradable handrail covers that would grow flowers where they were left. Although something like this may seem ridiculous, the exercise helped us really grasp the possibilities that we may be capable of by the end of the year. On the other hand, the most firm idea that we had presented to Deanna was a removable handrail that could be snapped into the aluminum wheel much more easily.
After discussing our project deeper, we decided our next step was to find the proper material with which we will create our product. In order to find the best material, we have decided to meet with Professor Goodman, a materials science professor in engineering. I took a class with him my junior year as a part of the Technology and management program. My group will meet with him this upcoming Friday and hopefully will be able to move forward after this.
This week, we have moved from the ideation stage and have started our focus on rapid prototyping. Instead of having our regular Wednesday morning class, we had our session on Tuesday evening. Due to conflict with my other course, I was unable to attend the session myself. However, I got updates from friends and teammates about the process and things we covered in the session. The session itself focused on preparing for Makeathon, the event that we are going to participate in a couple of weeks, and we were introduced to resources and opportunities about that event.
The whole session was taken with Dr. McDonagh’s Industrial Design class and Jeff’s Fab Lab class, so our class was able to brainstorm and share ideas with more people. We were also introduced to resources such as the Fab Lab, Makerlab, and Architecture lab; when the Makeathon takes place in the future, we are going to have the opportunities to use resources from those facilities. Furthermore, many old and new mentors came to share their ideas and stories in the class and provided new perspectives to us.
To our group, our focus has been on inventing a glove that could help users grab things easier. We intended it to be applicable for people with limited mobility and not enough arm strength. We hoped the users would be able to overcome the obstacle of not able to eat independently; through using our design, the users could enjoy the food with their friends and families without the help of other people. In the session, our group was introduced to the motion of using the knife and fork. This was something that we didn’t consider before. Previously, we focused on the environment that the users would be in when they used the product. We thought about the configuration of the meal setting including how the utensils were placed nearby the users so that it would be easy for them to start using them. We considered the texture of the glove as well so that the glove would be able to accomplish the task that we wanted it to be able to do. However, we didn’t specifically consider the different types of utensils that the users were going to interact with. We didn’t consider how the features of the utensils would influence the interactions, and how we should design the glove in a way that it could accommodate different types of utensils. In the following weeks, we are going to take this factor into consideration, and build a glove that could be more user-friendly.
I am Huan Wu, a leadership-oriented undergraduate student studying Accountancy, Supply Chain Management and Information Systems/Information Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
I chose to major in those areas because I am a person who likes to learn new knowledge continuously and take on challenges. The challenges bring me excitement, as I enjoy the feeling of using my expertise to tackle hard issues, find insights and initiate change. I believe having an understanding of different fields allows me to have a broader perspective when I look at issues in business. I aim at improving myself and learning skills to initiate change and make real impacts in the world in the future.
My LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huan-wu-0507/
The ultimate goal of the Digital Making Seminar course is to create a functioning prototype of whatever it is that each team is working on by the end of the Make-a-thon, taking place from Friday, April 12th, 5:00 pm to Sunday, April 14th, 2:00 pm. What makes this event so exciting is that it not only involves the Digital Making Seminar students but also the students from Dr. Deana McDonagh and Jim Kendall‘s studio class as well as Jeff Ginger‘s Marketspace class. Although the point of the event is to provide the space and resources for the participants to make their ideas come to reality and not to compete against each other, because many external people see the value of what we are doing, we have judges, sponsors, and expert users and mentors to guide us through the progress.
As the date of the event approaches, Dr. Vishal Sachdev, our professor for the course, set up a pre-event, where the participants came together to meet each other as well as some of the mentors and expert users. The pre-event began with the introduction of the make-a-thon with details regarding the schedule and the resources that we would have access to. From the Fablab to Architecture Annex on campus, we are fortunate to have been provided with access to many resources. We are all very excited to utilize the resources to develop on the ideas that we have worked on so far throughout the semester.
While sharing the details of the event, Dr. Sachdev, as well as Dr. McDonagh, reemphasized that the purpose of the event is to design withthe expert users and mentors in different opportunities that have been identified. We are not solving any problems or challenges. It is critical for the participants to remember this as we want to constantly keep the users in our mind while constructing prototypes and receive feedback by working with them.
After going through the details of the event, we were introduced to a few of our mentors and expert users as well as new ones. Each one of them took the time to introduce themselves, sharing their stories to inspire us.
John and Isaiah, two of the new expert users that have been introduced, shared how they adapted to the struggles that they faced. For example, John, whose condition does not allow him to have enough grip strengths to use his fingers to pull apart a sock to put over his foot, kindly demonstrated the solution that he found for it.
John’s sock which has been modified to fit his need.
As pictured above, with help from his mother, he simply had three loops sewed around the neck of the sock, allowing him to insert his fingers through them and to tug on them. This simple, yet brilliant idea inspired many of us, encouraging us to think of simple ideas and to look for inspiration from the daily objects. We realized that by doing that, we will be able to come up with things that many users would have access to and find easy to use.
Steve, a representative of Clark-Lindsey, also shared the stories of the residents and their needs in the local retirement community. From the challenges of holding the phones to video chat with the family to the danger of falling due to dementia and pre-Parkinson’s disease, he shared how we can leave a big impact on many different types of users through this event. This sharing inspired some groups, such as the team that is working on developing a product to help the people with prosthetic legs to improve the balance to do yoga, to think of ways to expand the user base.
Afterward, we were provided with opportunities to talk with the expert users and mentors to ask questions and to receive feedback on the ideas that we have been developing throughout the semester. Some teams were also able to talk with students from other classes to see if any of them would be interested in joining the team.
As we continue towards the make-a-thon, most of the teams are moving into the prototyping phase. So far, we came up with many different ideas and developed on them, constantly receiving feedback from the expert users. However, we understand that there will be different challenges that will arise when we try to make the ideas tangible, which is why prototyping is important. From low fidelity prototypes to 3D designing through Fusion360 and printing the product, we will be experimenting with different ways to develop the prototypes. We are all very excited to continue to work on our ideas and look forward to presenting them during the make-a-thon!
I am a Computer Science major however, I have always had a passion for art. For years I’ve been seeking ways to utilize both of my passions for tech and art interchangeably. After seeing pictures of Gucci’s FW18 show in Milan I was stunned. Models were walking down the runway with their heads! I was so intrigued that I did some research into how Gucci made this happened.
MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 21: A model walks the runway at the Gucci show during Milan Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2018/19 on February 21, 2018 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Pietro D’aprano/Getty Images)
“Representing the growth and self-awareness of a person as well as being conscious of one’s evolution, models walked the Gucci Fall Winter 2018 show holding replicas of their heads. To recreate their faces, the models’ moulds in silicone and plaster, and the models were scanned at Makinarium’s headquarters in Rome six months ago for a virtual 3D impression to capture their expressions. This advanced technology is then finished hand texturizing by artisans in the factory’s laboratory.”
The company Makinarium is famous for creating special effects for numerous movies. After finding this out I decided to dig deeper. Silicone has not only been of benefit in the art world but also in other industries such as the medical and aerospace industry, In an article by Alina Cohen it states, “[silicone] shape-shifting potential has inspired everyone from astronauts to plastic surgeons: Neil Armstrong wore silicone-tipped gloves during the first-ever moonwalk; cosmetic surgery has long relied on the material for breast implants;”
3D printing is used alongside silicone molding and casting. 3D printing and silicone casting have many similarities. One is that they are useful for making duplicates and prototyping. However, the traditional material used to 3D is a lot harder than silicone. Using them interchangeably allows for one to still leverage the ability to prototype efficiently while also being able to dedicate certain materials to certain aspects of the design. One team utilized both 3D printing and silicone casting to make a tail prosthetic for an alligator. In an article by Clare Scott, it states,
“The team 3D printed the model and used it to make a silicone cast. That cast was then used to make multiple prosthetic tails for Mr. Stubbs. Why didn’t they just 3D print a wearable prosthetic? While 3D printing has been used to create numerous prosthetics for animals, an alligator tail is especially large, and the team would have needed a large-scale 3D printer to print the prosthetic all in one piece. There are certainly 3D printers that could handle the job, but it would have been a time-consuming print, especially since they wanted to make multiple prosthetics. It would be easier to make one 3D print, use it to make a mold, and quickly cast several pieces.”
There are now 3D printers on the market that can print with silicone. In an article by Farai Mashambanhaka it states, “Wacker Chemie, a leading chemical giant, unveiled the first silicone 3D printer. This development brought great options in critical areas of application, especially in the health and medical areas, where silicone is considered to be biocompatible and tear resistant.” Researchers at the University of Southern California leveraged 3D printing silicone as they found a way to 3D print self-healing polymers, “Researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering have done just that: created 3D-printed rubber materials that can quite literally fix themselves without human intervention.” (Tracey Schelmetic)
3D printers that print silicone are utilized in the medical industry especially for the new development of breast implants. After numerous failures with breast implants erupting surgeons are seeking new ways to create safe breast implants one-way of accomplishing this is through using 3D printers that print silicone.
3D printing and silicone will continue to integrate in the future if technology. I think it is amazing that this intersection ranges from art to the medical industry. It really speaks to the power of STEAM.
On Tuesday, we had a meeting with all the students who will attend Make-A-Thon. Some of them are from the art class and a few people are from a class in Fablab. Lots of them are actually art and design major students. I didn’t expect there would be other students from another college attending the Make-A-Thon. I think it would be really interesting by having such a diverse participant. Definitely, this will make sure that the products we’ll make in the Make-A-Thon will be more creative and effective.
After the meeting, we get the chance talking to some guest speakers and mentors. Saloni and I interviewed one of the guest speaker who’s also a wheelchair user. We asked about his situation and we found that our ideas of gloves don’t really help him that much since he can hold certain things and use them effectively. Later on, we found a challenge that it’s hard for him to cut the meat into pieces. He is using a special knife which cost lots of energy to be utilized. It might be a great opportunity for us to think about if there’s any specific problems like this waiting there to be solved. We might gain more insights and ideas by focusing on those specific challenge. He also talked about his socks with special loop which can help him put it on his feet. I found this is a really innovative idea.
We also meet another student from the class in Fablab, and we introduced our product to him. I can tell he’s really good at critical thinking and he really came up with lots of ideas that suggest us that we might also can think about other opportunities but not just focus on our current idea. Through the conversation with the guest speaker and the student, we also discovered a new challenge which is it’s really difficult for the guest speaker to put on a watch by himself. The student mentioned magnetic watch, however the guest speaker said sometimes it might stick to the wheels when he rolls the wheels of his wheelchair. This provide us a whole new idea to explore.
At last, we asked the student to join our team and provide more advice to our project. I really look forward to collaborate with him in next few weeks. He also knows more technical skills using the equipments in the Fablab, and I believed that this will expand our ideas with barriers of the difficulties in operating different machines. I hope we can come up with a more comprehensive idea of our project and start working on it.
This week was a little different from most. Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend class due to our meeting time changing for a Pre Make-A-Thon Session. From reading my other classmates posts and knowing what we did in class it seemed incredibly beneficial. I was unable to attend due to a time conflict with my other class. I attached some photos here of the sessions that some of my classmates added to the forum already.
Movi Project Update
After coming back from spring break it was great that Professor Vishal assigned us an assignment that could put our team back on track. This week our group met up in the Business Instructional Facility to discuss our testing protocols for our project. Our group went very in-depth on how we should go about testing our product. It was really great to discuss with both Jay and Nathan about this because moving into Make-A-Thon next weekend we need to understand how and why we need to test our product. I think our entire group is really excited to get into Make-A-Thon to start creating and making our project a reality. With the major number of mentors there to help us with ideas and testing, I’m excited to get our feet on the ground and start MOVIng.
My name is Ryan Kane, and I am a senior graduating in the spring of 2019 from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Gies College of Business. I have a double major is both Supply Chain Management and Information Systems and Information Technology.
3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a technological process that can bring a digital file into a three-dimensional solid object through adding layers by layers of material until the object is formed (“What is 3D Printing?”). 3D printing consists of a series of additive manufacturing technologies, including “selective laser sintering (SLS), fused deposition modeling (FDM), laser-assisted bioprinting, micro-extrusion, etc” (Derossi et al., 2017). The history of 3D printing technology can be traced back to the 1980s. In 1981, Hideo Kodama published his account of a functional rapid-prototyping system that could build a solid, printed model through building up layers that corresponded with the cross-sectional slices of the model with photopolymers. In 1984, Charles Hull invented stereolithography that allowed designers to create 3D models using digital data, which could then be brought to a tangible object through the rapid-prototyping system, which was the start of 3D-printing technology (Goldberg, 2018).
In the past decade, 3D printing has brought significant impact to many different industry sectors, including engineering, medicine, aerospace, art, education, as well as food manufacturing (Derossi et al., 2017). This research paper will focus on the impact of 3D printing in the food manufacturing sector.
3D Printing in the Food Manufacturing Sector
3D Printing in Food Manufacturing
3D printing in food was first introduced by researchers from Cornell University through extrusion-based printing. Now, there are four types of 3D printing techniques widely used in the food manufacturing sector. These 3D printing techniques include extrusion-based printing, SLS, binder jetting, and inkjet printing (Liu et al., 2017).
Types 3D Food Printing Techniques
Extrusion-based printing
The extrusion-based printing technology
is usually used in printing hot-melted chocolate, soft dough, mashed potatoes,
meat puree, cake frosting, processed cheese, and sugar cookies. This technology
can also be used in printing non-traditional materials like algae and insects.
3D printed chocolate cat through extrusion-based printing
3D Printed chocolate heart through extrusion-based printing
3D printed mashed potatoes with complex design through extrusion-based printing
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)
SLS technology is usually used in creating complex structures that are made up of sugar or sugar-rich powders. This method can create various attractive complex structures that could not be produced by conventional ways.
Cake Topper Printed through the SLS technology
Binder Jetting
The method of binder jetting is usually used in constructing edible structures using sugars and starch mixtures. This method allows the production of a wide variety of colorful and tasty edible objects like various kinds of complex sculptural cakes.
3D Printed Cake through Binder Jetting
3D Printed Cake through Binder Jetting
Inkjet Printing
The technology of inkjet printing is usually used in surface filling and image decoration by dispensing edible liquid on the food surface to create appealing images. In this way, this technology is best in creating different images with high resolutions on edible structures like a biscuit, cake, and crackers.
3D Printed food surfaces through inkjet printing
3D Printed food surfaces through inkjet printing
Impact of 3D Food Printing
The application of 3D printing in food manufacturing can bring positive impacts on food and consumers through its highly customizable nature. It allows people to obtain personalized and digitalized nutrition, tailored shape and dimension, customized internal structure and taste (Derossi et al., 2017). It can also simplify the supply chain and enlarge the source of available food material by using non-traditional food materials, including insects, high fiber plant-based materials, and by-products from plants and animals (Liu et al., 2017). However, the application of 3D printing in food manufacturing also leads to societal challenges (Deloitte, 2018).
Benefits
Customization & Enlargement of Sources of Food Materials
In terms of the positive impact the 3D food printing, a major positive impact or potential that 3D food printing has is that food can be personalized and digitalized so that the required nutrition and energy is provided accordingly. In addition to this, the enlargement of sources of materials used in the fabrication of food introduces people to the more non-traditionally expected food and a greater variety of options to choose from.
For instance, the US Army has a very strong interest in the application of 3D food printing in military food primarily due to the following facts:
the technology ensures that the production of meals will not be at a shortage on the battlefield;
meals can be personalized, digitalized, and customized depending on each soldier’s need for nutrition and energy;
the technology offers more options to soldier’s food in terms of the materials used in the fabrication of food (Liu et al., 2017).
In addition, NASA also funded Systems and Materials Research Corporation (SMRC) to investigate the possibility of applying 3D printing for manufacturing food that meets food safety, nutritional stability, and acceptability requirements during long space missions (Liu et al., 2017).
Moreover, as many countries are starting to face aging problems, the issues of nursing home residents having chewing and swallowing difficulties are becoming more serious than before. Softer texture of food will be easier to swallow (Liu et al., 2017). In this case, personalized meals that are produced based on different individuals’ needs for nutrition and energy, physical ability to chew and swallow, and age becomes very useful. In addition, smaller pieces of food will also be easier to chew and swallow for elders. In this case, the ability to tailor shape and dimension very important to produce the meals based on the different individual needs too.
Reproducibility
Another key benefit of 3D food printing is its nature of reproducibility. 3D printing enables chefs to produce exactly the same design for multiple times, especially for those designs that are especially difficult to produce by hand and reproduce. With today’s technology, the ability to elaborate designs and reproduce the special 3D designs helps the production becomes more rapid and ensures the quality of the food design as oppose to hand-made food (Koeing, 2016). In the high-end dining industry, the ability to reproduce complex food design is one of the major elements of fine dining because the quality and reproducibility are highly valued by consumers.
Simplified Supply Chain
3D food printing can also simplify the customized food supply chain. The robots (food printers) will facilitate the implementation of a strategy that produces the product as orders come in with low overriding costs. The production facilities can be near the end consumers, helping to simplify the customized food supply chain and bring the products to consumers in a more economical manner, specifically with a shorter period of time with fewer human resources being used and higher affordability (Sun et al., 2015). This becomes very beneficial to consumers because it leads to lower prices of customized food as the production process can precisely control the inputs and outputs of the 3D printed food and faster delivery of food to the hands of consumers. The 3D food printing technology can also ensure consistent quality of food products.
Challenges
Although current 3D food printing technology gives us the ability to control the flavor, texture, color, nutritional makeup, shape, and reproducible quality of food. However, the advancement of this technology also raises concerns of the edible materials and other ethical and societal challenges.
Challenges of Material
As the 3D food printing technology gains more popularity, there are some concerns toward the use of edible material, like the health concern for food as the temperature fluctuates. “During the extrusion process in 3D food printing, temperature fluctuations can also represent a health concern for food because the heating/cooking may promote microbial, bacteria, or fungus growth. Thus the industry needs to follow e.g. FDA guidelines regarding appropriate food temperatures” (Pérez et al., 2019). In addition to the temperature fluctuations, food materials with high viscosity and high consistency index are hard to be extruded from the nozzle. The precision of the 3D food printing process will also be affected if the food needs to be printed faster. This is because increasing the printing speed of the 3D food printing process currently requires a larger nozzle, but when the nozzle becomes larger, the precision and quality of printing the shape of the food will become worse than expected. How to adapt to the edible materials used to 3D print food becomes a major challenge.
Ethical & Societal Challenges
In addition to the challenges on the 3D printed food fabrication materials and processes, the ethical and societal implications that 3D food printing brings to the table are more serious.
For instance, “human nutritional needs has been shaped and met by eating whole, natural food. These contain trace elements microbial flora and fauna we are continually discovering the significance of” (Deloitte, 2018). In this sense, we have rich knowledge about what we have discovered as key nutritional elements that human needs for survival, energy, and growth. However, as we are continually learning about nutritional needs, we have to acknowledge that we have limited knowledge about human nutritional needs. We only know the needs that we have discovered, but we don’t know if there are any nutritional needs that are fundamental that has not been discovered yet. If a large portion of the diet is made up of 3D printed customized food, there may be a possibility that we are leaving out key nutritional needs that we have not yet noticed. If there is a risk of unknown malnutrition problems with the 3D printed, personalized, nutrient diet, would the promoting of the benefits of meeting human nutritional needs through customized 3D printed diet still be ethical?
Moreover, like other technologies, 3D food printing is also a process of automation. Whenever the automation topic is brought up, one critical societal question we need to think about should be whether automation that can bring convenience to people is worth the value to exchange for our daily activities, especially the social aspect of preparing and sharing natural food (Deloitte, 2018). To some people, the value of the social aspect of preparing and sharing natural food may be much greater than convenience. To these people who value their daily social activities highly may find a hard time adapting to the usage of 3D food printing because such automation takes away the happiness that can come out from making food. But to other people, this may be the opposite. As a result, the controversy around automation continues.
Derossi, A., et al. “Application of 3D Printing for Customized Food. A Case on the Development of a Fruit-Based Snack for Children.” Journal of Food Engineering, vol. 220, 18 May 2017, pp. 65–75., doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2017.05.015.
Liu, Zhenbin, et al. “3D Printing: Printing Precision and Application in Food Sector.” Trends in Food Science & Technology, vol. 69, 1 Sept. 2017, pp. 83–94., doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2017.08.018.
Pérez, Bianca, et al. “Impact of Macronutrients Printability and 3D-Printer Parameters on 3D-Food Printing: A Review.” Food Chemistry, vol. 287, 27 Feb. 2019, pp. 249–257., doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2019.02.090.
Sun, Jie, et al. “A Review on 3D Printing for Customized Food Fabrication.” Procedia Manufacturing, vol. 1, 21 Oct. 2015, pp. 308–319., doi:10.1016/j.promfg.2015.09.057.
I am a student who’s currently studying accountancy and management of information systems. I am graduating this year and entering the MAS program at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I love programming and accountancy as much as I love taking photographs and learning how to play the Rubik’s cube. I love trying out new things and learning new skills. Learning how to make accessible designs utilizing digital making skills is one of the new skills I learned.
This week I had class during our changed class session. I was upset to miss the lead up to the make-a-thon but I expect my team members recruited great students to help us during the event.
As an update on our project, my team is working with Arielle to help improve an athlete’s grip during bad weather conditions. We have different ideas to modify the glove or modify the ring itself. However, we are not sure which of these ideas is the most feasible. Part of what we are still trying to figure out is what material would be best for our product. We also did research before spring break to understand current solutions in the market.
In order to better understand materials, we have reached out to Dr. Goodman who is a Material Science Engineering Professor. For our Technology & Management minor, we took a basic introduction to material science engineering. Dr. Goodman was our Professor and we believe he would have very valuable input for this project. Nathan emailed him on behalf of my team and his team. We are trying to schedule a meeting for next week.
For current market solutions, this was a little difficult for our group to come up with. That is because the current solution is what Arielle told us about – everything is manual and grips need to be replaced around every 3 weeks. Therefore, we research everyday wheelchairs and tried to understand what makes them work well in the rain. We assumed that grip problems would also occur in everyday wheelchairs and we were correct.
This article was really helpful and mentioned a variety of different wheelchairs that are good in the rain. One specific one I want to highlight is the Spinergy FlexRim.
Here is a picture of the spinergy flexrim wheelchair.
This chair uses a urethane material to secure the pushrim and it provides extra traction. The flex strip provides more traction and helps users with carpel tunnel and tennis elbow! Hopefully, with the help of Dr. Goodman we can see if we can apply this technique to racing wheelchairs also.
This week, we had our first pre-Makeathon class. There was Dr. McDonagh’s art and design students and Maker lab’s students who were also participating in this event. We discussed about when and how this event was going to happen. I’ve heard about Hackathons in our school. However, I never heard about this event called the Makeathon and I am very honored to have the chance to participate in one.
Other people from the DRES came over to help us brainstorm our ideas. Since our team MOVI had a set idea, we tried to expand on how we might improve our ideas. We talked to one of the wheel chair users named Isaiah. He was very cool talking about his experience as a wheel chair user and having hand tremors at the same time. I told him that we were trying to make a knee protection for everyone even for people with hand tremors. When he saw our previous prototypes, he asked if we could make the connection part out of zippers. For people with weak hand strength, it is very hard to utilize items that require grip. Especially garments using Velcro or button-ups are the worst, so they try to stay away from those products. I think this strengthen our prototype and it expanded our user group as well.
John was another wheel chair user with hand tremor who came over to the conference to help us out. He gave us a very compelling story of his special sock, customized by his mother. The sock had two holes on each sides, so John can insert his finger through the hole and them pull his foot. This also gave us the idea of making the zipper hole very big so, people with hand tremors can easily use this circle attachment to put the knee protection on.
Further on, our team will talk with Jenna and Jeannette this week, and study how they fall. We have already came up with some great questions through our “testing protocol” exercise. By watching Jenna and Jeannette fall, we can deduct which part of the protection needs more pad. I think we were very successful during this week and I am looking forward to our talk with our users.
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