Category: Week11

This week we had a the Test-Protocol assignment. Each team designed a series of procedures and plans to conduct its project. At first, I was a little bit lost about this assignment. After I look through the documents shared on the assignment’s page, I had more understanding and clue to this assignment. By reading through other team’s test protocol, I was also inspired and add more details to the protocol of our team.

On Tuesday, our class started with the presentation of a guest speaker from iVenture. Through her speech, I realized that there is a thing called iVenture which encourage and support students to begin their startups. I found it’s a really great opportunity for students to make some of their prototypes come to a real product which can be put into the market. I asked for the guest speaker’s contact information after class, and I will reach out to her and learn more about this great opportunity.

Later on, we have the chance to update our project with the mentors from milestone lab. We tell them about our progress after last time we met them. They also provided us some ideas that help us further to our next step. Since there are lots of different movements when we hold different tools to reach different goals, mentors told us to currently focus on how to hold a fork with the gloves at this current stage. After we reach the goal of using fork to eat, we should move to the next stage which aims to focus on more purposes.

Move to the next stage, professor asked us to discuss about some materials that we might use at the Make-A-Thon. After discussing with my teammates, we came up with some ideas. However, later on we found out that it was really hard to determine the amount of materials that we might need, since we were not too sure about what we really need and we didn’t want to waste money to buy some useless materials. Then we did some research and came up with a few materials. We also can utilize materials in Fablab during the Make-A-Thon. Speaking of the Make-A-Thon, we will also have a member who’s from the class held by Fablab. Hopefully, he’ll also join our team and try to figure out how are we going to start making our product. I hope every team can contribute to their projects and good luck to everyone!

This week we started class by hearing someone speak from iVenture. This was cool for me because I am currently working with YouMatter studios that is an iVenture start up. I think it is super awesome that our school has a program that helps fund startups, and this would be a great way for some of the groups in our class to continue their projects. Unfortunately since I’m graduating I don’t think we would participate in this, but she did mention how seniors can still establish a team with younger members, as they can take it forward next year. That is nice to hear because we do have a sophomore on our team, so if we do want our product to develop more he is someone who will still be on campus to utilize on campus resources.

We also spent some time with our team discussing materials we’ll need for the makeathon and we created some drawing designs. We also spoke to Milestone Labs and speaking with them made me realize and important discovery. Eating with a spoon is different than eating with a fork because it requires a stabilized hand movement leading up to the mouth, which is another type of movement we would have to design for. This is why we have decided to only focus on designing for eating with a fork. By just focusing on this we just have the motions of putting the glove on, securing the fork in the glove, picking up the food item, and then eating the item.

Going into the Makeathon I am in contact with a student who could be a great resource to test our product, but I am still figuring out if he is free for an interview this upcoming week. We also need to get utensils that we could find at restaurants to practice picking up food items. We don’t know yet which material will be the best for our gloves, which is why we are thinking of requesting to order multiple materials. I am excited for the makethon but also nervous! I hope everything works out and we are able to create something that we’re proud of!

iVenture

This week we continued with our preparation for the Make-A-Thon. Initially we had a presentation form Valeria, she talked to us about the iVenture Accelerator, an educational accelerator for top student startups at the university of illinois.This presentation was quite interesting to me because I’ve recently become interested in pursuing my own startup. Being involved in a program that trains and provides resources for those who want to expand on their own ideas is a good opportunity.

MileStone meetings feedback

After the presentation, we had one one one team meetings with MileStone Labs. My team, Rotam is designing a product that will protect, one of the experts/mentors Ryan, power chair joystick from getting wet in the rain. MileStone Labs gave us good feedback on how we should differentiate our product from others in the market. They also prompted us to focus on finding materials that would expand our product from not only providing protection for the joystick but also protecting, for example, the hand controlling the joystick.

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Material List

For the rest of the class time, we generated a list of materials that we would need to utilize for the Make-A-Thon. We also came up with quick sketches of what we plan to create during the Make-A-Thon. We are leaning towards a sleeve design for the joystick. Therefore, one challenge that we are facing is getting the measurements for the joystick on Ryan’s chair. Traditionally we could just meet up to measure his chair with tape measures but we are hoping that we can instead scan his chair with the iPad and generate a CAD design of the joystick. Another challenge we are facing is finding a material that will be water resistant but also flexible. We came up with the idea to design a product that has protective layers similar to a water-resistant phone case. Therefore, we want to make sure every nook of the joystick is protected rather it be via plastic or a material such a neoprene. I am excited yet anxious for the Make-A-Thon. However it turns out I think it will be a good experience for everyone.

This week marked only a week and a half away from the Makeathon! In class we heard from the Social Innovation Center at the university discussing the opportunities we have to pursue our projects after the course is over. The Social Innovation Center helps run the iVenture Accelerator – a 10 week summer accelerator that helps student start-ups get the mentorship and funding they need to make their vision a reality. The program is full-time during the summer, but then continues throughout the entire school year with bi-weekly meetings for guidance and furthering your vision. Unfortunately, I am a senior so I will not be able to be a main player furthering a project since I will have to start work. However, the opportunities presented in class to us were really incredible and showed the immense support that the University has for students who want to pursue their own ideas.

After this presentation, we had the opportunity to speak with Milestone Labs. They seemed pleased with our work so far but we were not able to show them the sketches and prototypes that we had made that they had seen an earlier week due to technical difficulties so they did not give us particularly detailed feedback. Overall, they suggested that we move forward in creating our design in a CAD software and print smaller scaled versions to understand how the pieces would play together and iterate more. I included the original prototypes we created below for reference.

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Since we created those prototypes, we have made some edits to our design based on feedback from Jenna, Marsha, and others. Two of my teammates were able to meet with William this Friday to discuss our design in further detail. Coming out of that meeting, they had created a more in-depth sketch with some of the tweaks we had been discussing over the past few weeks, along with some suggestions from Michael.

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William also suggested using a flexible material in some parts of the design. He mentioned “printing on top” of one design to do this. Our team was unfamiliar with this concept so I did a bit of digging to understand how this would be possible and what that entailed. This video was very helpful in understanding how printers with multiple extruders, but also mentions how to make things using multiple materials with a normal 3D printer. Each piece would just have to be printed separately if we did not have access to a multi-extruder printer from my understanding.

Our next steps will be to create our design in a computer-aided design software. Unfortunately, this technical skill is not any of our expertise, so we are having trouble getting this actually created. Hopefully this week in class we will be able to sit down with someone who has more know-how on this topic to help us create the file so that we can print a scaled design and understand what works and what needs to be changed!

Huge session this week as we finally had to decide on a list of materials before next weekend’s makeathon. Prototypes are as close as ever, and everything slowly seems to be piecing itself together. Nonetheless, I want to take a more abstract focus in my reflection this week as I have been heavily involved in the COZAD competition outside of the coursework this semester.

It was very interesting to see 2 startups in the venture competition actually solely focusing on the disabilities and / or wheelchair user communities. I think we are slowly moving towards a society where even the average individual is beginning to look into solutions and opportunities within these communities.

One of the projects is a focused job board for those with disabilities. The other is a software project which will help urban planners create accommodating environments for wheelchair users. The latter is being started by a 19-year-old sophomore. Unreal.

The new wave of innovation at Illinois must be capitalized on. We are a campus which has prided ourselves and inclusion and entrepreneurship… and it is so cool to finally see everything coming together.

It was good to be back at the MakerLab this week for class. This week in class, our task was to focus on presenting our updated plan for our design to Milestone Labs via Zoom and detail out what materials we will need for the Makeathon.

We started class by going over more information about the Makeathon, and it seems like it is going to be a very exciting event. We are lucky to be a part of the first ever Makeathon. It is so great that we have so many stakeholders and sponsors for the event. I can tell the class is very excited to get started!

This week my group and I really narrowed down our options for how we might create a solution to our problem statement. We are trying to help the wheelchair track team create a way to have better grip on their handrings during harsh weather conditions. We were deciding between finding a way to make it easier to put a cover over the handring, since currently it is hard work for the racer and a very tedious task; or finding a way to add a cover over the existing one to attach during or before a race in the rain. After speaking to Milestone Labs, they suggested that we narrow down our option to solve one problem to better understand our task. After a lot of discussion and brainstorming, my group and I decided we are going to try and find a way to create a better grip that can be attached to the ring.

We also discussed what materials we might want to test with our prototype. We are meeting a material science professor later this week. So that will give us a good idea of what materials are flexible enough to use that will also create a good grip when wet. We are going to test how adding snaps to the existing handring, as well as to our materials will hold up. Our plan is to be able to snap the cover in place easily and quickly so that a racer could pull over mid-race and adjust in case it started to rain mid-race. We plan on testing various materials around the ring to hopefully find one that creates the best friction. I am excited to get started on this process and hopeful that we will find a workable solution for the team!