Month: April 2019

I believe that this was such an amazing experience to see and work on as a group. We put in tons of hours to get our product up and running and it felt so gratifying to come out with a product we were happy with!

Initially, we started with a plan to work by making a 1:1 replica of Jenna’s leg. With this, it was really such a huge help to propel our ideas forward. From there we worked on constructing our pad, outer shell, and designs.

When constructing our pad we used 2 pieces of Styrofoam padding with strips of metal on the inside to help with structure and security. After we created the interior lining of the pad we wanted to sew a nylon fabric around it to give it a better aesthetic appeal.

After our pad was complete we began working on shaping our outer shell and design to lay on it. Jae made so many fantastic designs so after we had our shape laser cut out of acrylic we were able to laser cut Jae’s design into it. After our piece was designed we were able to use the heat gun provided by the FabLab and mold our design to Jenna’s model leg we had. After we had the shape we cut our shell down the middle and attached a hinge to make it simple for Jenna to attach the guard. Final we attached the pads and traps we had made to the design to complete the final touches.

Overall this experience was amazing to work with and around such fantastic people that all had a common goal to make the world a better and easier place with their designs. After our presentations were put together and the judging was over with me and my team had been lucky enough to be named one of the winners of the competitions! Thank you to the school of design and school of business for coming together and making this happen. Im am so happy I got to experience something like this before I graduate.

Ryan Kane

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.

Last weekend, we finally reach the point where all our efforts throughout the semester has been leading to, Make-a-Thon 2019. Before heading into the weekend, my team and I had a lot of concerns and uncertainty regarding the event as we felt like we are behind on our schedule and not ready for it. In addition, Samantha and I both had previous commitments that were arranged long before we knew about the dates of Make-a-Thon so we both were going to miss some parts of it.

So, we headed into Make-a-Thon weekend not is our best form but excited for the challenges that lies ahead of us. I had to take a trip to New York mid week and could not return until Saturday afternoon so I missed a day and half of Make-a-Thon. Since, we only had one teammate , Yingyi Wu, participating for the majority of the event, I was worried that the workload would be too much and we would not be able to achieve what we had set for. To my surprise, when I got back in town, Yingyi along with another teammate, Mohammed not only came up with a completely new design but managed to make a model of our product.

In the end, we came with a sandal that has extended wings which would offer Jenna additional balance support when she practices yoga. Overall, I was really proud of what we accomplished and cherish the opportunity and experience. I look forward to continue to improve on our product and continue to design with 3d priniting.

Ruei Kao

Our team was very happy with the prototype we were able to make last weekend at the make-a-thon. As a member of Team Evinco, we were workign with Arielle to try to increase an athlete’s grip during difficult weather conditions. We went into the make-a-thon with one specific goal however, as the weekend progressed we realized we shouldn’t constraint our design ideas and capabilites by focusing on this specific how can we statement!

The original water resistant materials we ordered were a yoga mat and a bath mat. However, we decided we could incorporate another how can we statement into our design and try to create a cover that could be easily attached before a race. Therefore, our team decided to use snap enclosures on our prototype. However, we quickly realized:

1. Our materials were too weak for the snap enclosures to work properly
2. Both materials wore down very fast during our testing session
3. The materials were too bulky to properly wrap around the ring the way we had imagined.

Therefore, our team had to get creative and we began borrowing materials from other teams. We even found a dip plastic one of the teams had purchased and decided to coat an aluminum hand ring in this plastic. As a final prototype, we would be interested to see if it would be possible to also coat the rubber on the glove with the dip plastic to improve traction in bad weather conditions. This is because our materials science Professor informed us that the great traction would be created if the material on the glove and the hand ring were the same. We also believe this will significantly reduce the time necessary to wrap the hand ring and make the process easier for athletes!

Overall, we got really positive feedback from the athletes who attended the make-a-thon. We learned they had not tried a variety of our ideas and while some did not seem promising they thought certain ideas could actually be really successful! We can’t wait to get more feedback from Arielle and Adam!

Maryam Siddique

Gies College of Business || May 2019

Supply Chain Management & Information Systems/Information Technology

Last week, we spent all weekend at the Fab Lab, developing our prototypes. Going into the weekend, I was nervous that my team was not going to be able to finish our design by the end of the weekend. On Friday, my teammate, Trevor, programmed an Arduino to detect pressure and enable force feedback. We planned to attach this to our tread so that prosthetic users could see where they are putting the most pressure on their prosthetic and adjust their gait accordingly.

On Saturday, my team examined the materials we had ordered, and realized we didn’t have the materials necessary to create a tread. So, we decided to make a trip to Walmart to pick up a pair of shoes and window caulk. Our plan was to use the bottom of the shoe as our tread and put window caulk (silicone) on the bottom of the tread for increased traction.

When we returned to the Fab Lab with our new materials, we wanted to cut the tread off with a band saw. However, we realize this wasn’t feasible because cutting the rubber would cause a potent odor. So, Brandon from the Fab Lab advised us to create a mold out of the tread and fill the mold with hot glue. When we first tried this, we didn’t put any lubricant on the shoe, so the mold crumbled to pieces.

On our second try (which also had to be our last since we used all of the mold compound), we successfully created a mold for our tread. Jennifer on my team used two hot glue guns to fill the mold. We knew hot glue was a good choice of material because it has good traction, is lightweight, and is flexible.

Once the hot glue cooled, we utilized a heat gun to smooth the top surface of the tread. We then attached velcro straps to the tread with more hot glue. We tested the tread on my foot to ensure that the straps were placed well.

Then, by Sunday morning, we attached the pressure sensor to the heel of the tread and finished making our presentation. We then presented to four judges and closed out the weekend we a final ceremony. My favorite part of the ceremony was when the two teams who tied for first place donated the 3D printer prize to DRES.

Later this week, my team met with our mentor, Jenna, to test the prototype. Some feedback we received from her was that she loved the flexibility and traction of the tread. She also mentioned that the tread was very lightweight. One piece of advice was to create two treads, one for each foot, and to make the straps bigger to fit around her shoe. While discussing with Jenna, we realized that another option to improve traction is to put hot glue directly on the bottom of her shoe. That way, the tread is less discreet. Exploring this possibility will be my team’s last steps!

Emma Bradford

Hi there! I am a Senior studying Marketing and Information Systems/Information Technology. I chose to take this course in order to expand my creative and design thinking skills that I can apply to my future career. I am grateful that we are provided the opportunity to take this course as Business majors.

Last weekend we participated in Make-A-Thon, the “Final Project” of BADM357. Starting from Friday afternoon, we had a meeting together and get to started planning on how we are going to spend the weekend. We didn’t follow our original idea which is the gloves that can hold utensils. Instead, Saloni suggested to focus on John’s concern about the watch band. Due to his disability, he cannot pinch things so that he’s not able to put to regular watch by himself. He tried magnetic watch band. However, the magnetic watch band would stick on his wheelchair when he rolls the wheels. Therefore, we need to come up with an idea that can solve this problem.

To be honest, I thought the watch band idea might be too complicated to accomplish. However, my teammates said that even though this product is more challenging, it really can help someone who has the need. After doing some research, I changed my mind and I determined to work on the new idea. I didn’t come up with lots of ideas on Friday since I was really tired and my brain didn’t function that well. Plus, there was a mandatory event that showed up suddenly from my club, so I had to go and rushed back to Fablab once it’s done. I really appreciate my teammates that they didn’t really get mad at me. After I went back, they told me more about their progress and what problem they were trying to solve. My teammates said John doesn’t like the velcro design on the band because he thought it was not a cool thing to be put on your watch band. Therefore, I did some research online and came up with an idea. I tried to make band that can utilized hooks and loops. Thanks to Team 1 who offered us a elastic strap. I made my band based on the strap they provided us. After that night, we made a prototype that can function perfectly. Since Saloni and Huan kept working on the original prototype, we had two prototypes in total.

On Sunday, we went back in the morning and finished our trip-fold for the presentation. We also asked John to try our new prototypes. The prototypes works perfectly for him and he really likes our ideas. During the presentation, we showed all the judges that how we came up with different ideas and the process of making our prototypes. I think we did a great job in the presentation part, since we have clear demonstration and elaboration. We also answered all the questions from judges perfectly. They seem to be nice people so I thought we all did great.

After presentation, all the teams went back to the meeting room and waited for the announcement of the winner. I never thought about that if we can earn the prize before I went in the meeting room. I did not even think about it. I think all my teammates were just too focusing on our projects so that we didn’t even have the time thinking about if we can win the prize or not. When the professor called our name “Blueprint”, we were all shocked, and obviously we were not prepared for that. At that time I just realized that we made it, our efforts turns into positive results.

In short, I really learned a lot from the first Make-A-Thon. I realize the importance of communication between team members and the importance of collaboration. Even though we might have some different perspectives, if we can sit down and open our heart to talk with each other, everything will work out. I really want to say thank you for everyone who participated the Make-A-Thon. Thank you so much for all the amazing faculties, sponsor companies, TAs, mentors from Fablab. I really appreciate your help and advice. I think Maker-A-Thon is a happy ending of BADM357, but it’s also a brand new start for us to make our dreams come true. I hope there will be the 2nd, 3rd, 10th Make-A-Thon in the future.

Eric Zhang

Personally, the Makeathon exceeded expectations for me and then some. It was riveting to see so many people putting their minds together to solve problems for others than ourselves. After 3 days of brainstorming, designing, prototyping and iterating, our team completed a pretty holistic solution to the presented challenge of protecting the electrical circuits in power wheelchairs.

We ultimately settled on a clear silicon pullover case which mimics on a phone cover. This way the cover will never have to be removed so Ryan or any other user will never have to worry about forgetting it if they are caught in inclement weather.

During the Makeathon we prototyped this from a clear plastic material after recreating the arm of a power wheelchair from Styrofoam and moldable plastic.  Additionally, I created a water sensor to detect leakage during QA and field testing. Our efforts culminated nicely, as our team co-won the grand prize alongside our classmates, Movi – and both teams happily donated the 3D printer from Ultimaker to the DRES facility.

Those 72 hours alone exponentially helped our team swiftly move from validated idea to prototyped concept, and I can personally say I did not expect us to take home the grand prize after it was all said and done. I’m really proud of all the work that was put in during the Makeathon and I’m stoked to see the culmination of it all over the next 2 weeks.

Michal Cymbalisty

We finally wrapped up our race to the Make-A-Thon. The Make-A-Thon was overwhelming and a long process. For an entire weekend, we were going from building to building collaborating, making and prototyping. I appreciate all of the funding and effort that was put into making it happen.

I was apart of team Rotam. We essentially went in with a simple plan and design of what we wanted to prototype. We created a sleeve prototype for Ryan’s joystick on his power chair. We created the prototype using plastic and styrofoam. The styrofoam was used to create a mold of the joystick and the plastic was used to create the sleeve. We finished our prototype fairly early which was a relief. However, the process did not go as I expected. One of our prototype ideas was to use a fabric called neoprene however, we weren’t able to get it in time. I also thought that using a heat gun would become handy for fitting the plastic to the mold. Instead, the heat gun did the opposite and even came close to melting the plastic and the styrofoam mold. However, the most exciting part of fabricating for me was finding out that the fab lab had plastic beads that we could heat up and mold with our hands. It was also cool to meet and work with students from other classes. The icing on top was finding out that our team had won prizes.

The only thing left for us to do is to continue to test and develop our prototype. I believe my team will continue to develop our test for detecting water and moisture on our prototype. We will also follow up with Ryan and other power chair users to get their input on the prototype. Other than that we have one class left of the semester. For me, it was a new experience to take a class that was project based. However, taking the class really opened my eyes to what I can get out of my college education.

Brianna Richard

Last weekend, we spent three days in the Make-a-thon attempting in getting our first functional prototype. Prior to the Make-a-thon, I was very worried. Most of my teammates will not be there in the Make-a-thon for most of the time. Fortunate enough, our team has another teammate from the Fab lab course who was willing to help out. Our ideas went from out initial 3D modeling of prosthetic replacement to adding supports on the front and back movements to an attachment to the foot instead of the prosthetic replacement with a look of sandals.

Our idea developed from a prosthetic replacement to an attachment was a huge change. This transition of thoughts was a result of many experts cooperation during the Make-a-thon. We went into deep debates between the two ideas and the pros and cons of different ideas. Our biggest concern during the Make-a-thon was still that we could not create something that is actually functional because ideas may have deceptions that we thought the idea would work out but it does not really work out. We were afraid that the final prototype would not provide enough support for Jenna to balance on her prosthetic. However, Jenna, our mentor, was not there during the Make-a-thon. We were unable to find someone to test out our prototype during the Make-a-thon except for ourselves, which was our greatest concern. However, with our muscles on our actual leg, we were unable to actually test how much support would the prototype provide to us. I tested the prototype myself and asked two of our teammates to test out the product. We could feel that the prototype provides some kind of support laterally. However, we were not able to actually test out whether the prototype could give us enough support during yoga poses. This was our greatest limitation during the Make-a-thon. Other than the concerns of the functionality of the prototype, our overall experience was great during the Make-a-thon because it gave us an ability to make our design to actual products and consult with many different experts to develop our idea further.

This weekend, we tested our prototype that we made during the Make-a-thon with Jenna. Her feedback was that the sandal provided additional lateral space that did actually increased a little bit of lateral balance. However, this support was not helpful enough to keep her balanced laterally, especially the body above her ankle did not get the type of support Jenna expected. This means that our idea was proven to be true that it did provide some sort of lateral support. However, this is far not enough for prosthetic users. This means that we have to redesign our prototype to provide more support above the ankle. Our mentor still recommended for a replacement of her prosthetic and with a cone shape that supports the rod to help out in supporting the upper part above her ankle.

After listening to Jenna’s suggestions, we will redesign our prototype and go back to the initial 3D modeling of prosthetic replacement to make changes that way. We expect to have the design modified before Wednesday on FUSION 360 and print the next prototype out. After the prototype is printed out, we will ask Jenna to test out the prototype again.

Yingyi Wu

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.