Category: Once a Semester Activity

This week was really cool because we were able to put our projects together that we have been working on the past couple weeks in the FabLab.

Physical Therapy Watch

The physical therapy watch that we have been working on the last couple of weeks is intended to patients correctly measure the effectiveness of their exercises. Utilizing tilt sensors and adjustable curl and twist settings this watch allows outpatients to better understand if they are correctly maximizing their workouts.

To begin we had to come to class with our laser cut watch face so we wouldn’t have to wast class time printing everybody’s out. This turned out to be incredibly beneficial because we were very pressed for time. When we arrived we were handed the remaining pieces of our watch along with come kits so we can integrate the sensor technology into our designs of our watch.

These kits were our biggest learning experience of the day because they helped us learn how to run code to our circuit boards to teach them different operations. To help operate the program we utilized a program named Arduino to input our designated codes into the circuits. It was really awesome to see that we were able to completely put together the entire product all the way down to the code telling the board what to do. This was the number one reason a lot of us joined this class and I believe to be the biggest value. We are learning ways to interact with technology to make things to better our society. The purpose of our code was to connect the board with the sensors to communicate when to register a correct movement or not, whether that be a curl or twist. With a combination of our watch face to help tell the users if they were work a twist or curl the code worked great.

After the coding of our circuit board was completed we put everything together using the components they gave us at the beginning of class. We continued to follow the steps of putting the watch together that I found really cool. The main purpose was to use our minds and our hands to make products. I thought it was really cool to work with our entire class to work and I really felt like I was becoming much more open-minded with my thought process. I had never really put together anything like this before and I found a lot of goof lessons in the process of learing how to build something form scratch.

Storyboarding

After we completed the work on our watch, we began the work on storyboard for our own projects. The objective of this exercise was to help groups visualize the process of our products being used. It gave all of our groups the opportunity to understand our products life cycle. It was nice to collaborate between our groups to create a better long term plan in our products life cycle. This was also great to better understand the end goal and our products perception by our users. By understanding our products end goal we can better understand how to make the best decisions in the beginning stages of the product. By talking and reading other groups conversations I think many people found this exercise very beneficial. I linked some helpful photo below that our groups shared to best dive into the storyboards.

Next steps moving forward I think our class needs to start preparing for our upcoming Make-a-thon. We are meeting on Tuesday to further understand the purpose of our projects and hear more about the Make-a-thon. I think that these next few weeks coming off of spring break are going to be really great for our projects. We have spent a lot of time theorizing and understanding our projects scope and now with time expiring on the semester its time for more advanced prototyping. Im excited for my group and to see the amazing ideas of other groups come to life!

Overall

I’ve learned so much throughout the eight weeks in class in BADM 357 Maker’s Lab class taught by Dr. Vishal. We got paired up into group of four and each group consist of people with different majors. Soon, I’ve discovered that this is great way to pair up groups. Since, we can share our different point of view, it helps us learn from each other and think broader. Then we were assigned a mentor per group. We were blessed with Jenna, a Paralympic athlete, who uses a prosthetic leg. Through the class, we learned about new skills, empathic modeling and prototyping. And with the new skills acquired, we tried to find opportunities that will make our mentor’s, Jenna, life easier.

Fab Lab

Fab Lab is a place located near the South Quad of University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, where anyone can come over and enjoy the numerous tools provided by the lab. It’s a very great place to use these expensive tools for a low cost as you can create even shoulder protectors out of mold and plastic. For the past two weeks, we were working with the Fab Lab on a watch that could alert when the user twists or turns his/her wrist.

Activity

1. Laser Cutter

A laser cutter is a device that produces a laser from a laser resonator that will be shot through a nozzle to cut a specific pattern. Our group were split up into two groups and one of the groups worked on the laser cutters. First, we used this platform called, “Inkscape” to create a cover for our watch. And then we converted this object, the design we drew, into a “path”. This will automatically generate a “G Code” and we uploaded this “G Code” to the laser cutter machine. A lot of students tried to design their twist and turn watch cover using words. Some students discovered, text can be replaced with two simple notches indicating the direction the watch can twist and turn. (https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/round-2-at-the-fablab/)

2. Circuit Board

A circuit board is a board that portrays the physical components of an electronic device. Students were to use a breadboard as their circuit board and connect different wires to light up a LED. First, each plus and minus side of a battery and two linear holes of the breadboard were connected using two wires. Then linear to one of the plus hole, insert the long end of the LED light. After that, use a resistor, to save overflowing of electricity, to connect the other end of the LED light to the hole linear to the short end of the LED light. Some students, who were more familiar with the math side of the circuit board, learned more about the science side of the circuit board through this activity. (https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/moving-forward-%EF%BB%BF/) This activity made students consider implementing some electrical function into their product as well.

Milestone Lab

Milestone Lab is a consulting firm specializing in cross-sector collaborations. They believe that a real social impact and changes comes when a person living with a challenge works with those who are trying to solve it. They were interested how we were working with people at DRES, where we met Jenna, to find opportunities to make people in DRES daily lives easier. This week, each group had a chance to talk with the Milestone Lab. Each group brought their own prototypes they’ve created in the previous week along with their research. Throughout the presentation, Milestone Lab gave critical feedback for each group. One group were suggested to ask their mentors about specific grip placement. (https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/moving-forward-%EF%BB%BF/). Another group were suggested to look into different materials to protect the joystick of the power wheel chair. (https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/lighting-up-the-bulb/) Our group was suggested to interview elderly prosthetic leg users. (https://digitalmaking.web.illinois.edu/spring2019/week-8-another-day-in-fablab-and-talking-with-milestone-studio/) As a result, many group members were very pleased on how Milestone Labs helped them took their project from an expert point of view. Many groups discovered they were lacking market research and material research from their talk with Milestone. For the next stage, a lot of groups are now looking into different materials and creating improved version of their prototypes.

https://www.milestone-labs.com/

Prototype

Prototyping is an activity where designers make a quick model of their ideation within under 30 minutes. It’s suppose to be a quick overview of what the model could look like after production. For our model, we made it in paper and foam so we can interact with them. We brought it to class and asked our mentor, Jenna, to try them out. And based on Jenna’s response, we discovered that she does not want any protection above the knee. This is because it hinders her performance during her practice. Similarly, other groups based their prototypes based on their mentor’s suggestions. This way, we knew the users are going to be satisfied when our products are placed in the market.

Conclusion

From week eight, our class learned how to use various of tools and receive great feedback from Milestone Labs. Now, students have the knowledge of using the laser cutter and circuit board to further improve their prototypes. Along with creating prototypes, the groups are ready to ask experts in Material Science departments, based on their talk with Milestone Lab, to consolidate their choice of material. And with the new prototypes, we will go back to our mentors to consolidate our design. Everyone discovered what they needed to improve for their next step. A lot of us are very satisfied with the progress we’ve made this week.