Category: Week13

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Week 13: Moving forward after the Make-A-Thon

Last weekend, we had our first Make-A-Thon and it was a blast. I knew about a Make-A-Thon other than it’s similar to a Hack-A-Thon. I really want to first thank all the staff, professors and sponsors who made this event possible. Without their help, I don’t think I would’ve had this awesome experience.

Before we went into the Make-A-Thon, all we had was a list of materials under a 150 dollars from Vishal and the fab lab. And we had to make our functional model of a prosthetic leg protection within two days over the weekend. For me, I was afraid we were not going to have enough time to finish our project. So, we made sure we scanned Jenna’s C-Leg model from the Makers Lab and went to the Fab Lab ahead of time, to print the C-Leg on the 3D printer. And with this, we saved 12 hours of printing a C-Leg during the Make-A-Thon.

I feel like the Make-A-Thon brought all of our group members close to each other. For example, Ryan gave me a ride to the Fab Lab and our new member, Yishou, helped us with the functionality. He is a PHD student in Engineering, but he is an expert when it comes to the tools in the Fab Lab. With his help, I was introduced to the Heat gun, the sowing machine, the Acrylic heater, the Laser cutter, etc. And he with his excellent skill with the sowing machine, our project looked very refined. Ryan helped us with the overall color scheme and knitting the velcro together with the strap. My job was to come up with the design for the prosthetic leg cover and create the prosthetic leg cover. At first, I didn’t know what to do, until Colten, a Fab Lab staff, gave me this awesome idea to bend the acrylic using the Heat gun and Acrylic heater. I was afraid at first, because both tools can get really hot and possibly burn the skin. But with enough practice and guidance from Fab Lab staffs, James and Duncan, I was able to make the shape. Also, since the C-Leg is ergonomic, heating the laser cut acrylic over the 3D-Printed C-Leg was a great idea. Overall, without our group members and the Fab Lab staff, I don’t think we could’ve achieve such a gorgeous final model.

We did our check up time to time during the Make-A-Thon. This gave us the good scheme of where everyone is at and got some great feedback from each other. Also, Michal Kabatznik from Milestone Lab was there to give us feedback. As an expert, she gave some great insight on how we should pursue our project and what steps we should take next. I really enjoy this check up and it made me feel we were part of a large team instead of competing between each other.

As conclusion, I think the Make-A-Thon made me grow as a person. I was able learn how to use these tools in the Fab Lab through trial and error. And whenever there was a problem, our team tackled it as a group not individuals. And with the preparations before the Make-A-Thon and Fab Lab staff members, our project came out way better than I ever imagined to be. From this point on, our team will try to talk with Jenna and Jeannette and see how we can improve our Prosthetic protection model.

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~MakeAThon~

Wow. What a weekend. Starting on Friday, I went in thinking about how I wanted to suggest to my group that we reconsider what we were going to design. I was really interested in pursuing the watch idea especially because of the excitement that John had saying that he would love to be able to wear a watch. After successfully convincing my team that this would be a good challenge to pursue, we got started.

Because we changed our idea the first day of the MakeAThon, a lot of our prior research was no longer applicable. Since we ordered materials to potentially make a glove however, we could still use it to test out making a wrist strap. We also utilized the buttons, rings, and flexible string that was available in the Fab Lab. Friday night we ended with a prototype that had some potential but was still hard to put on, but we were ultimately hopeful that we would be able to come up with something.

Starting on Saturday we started exploring the sports band. Charlie printed apple watch faces, and I started experimenting with string based off of some other fun designs we saw online. Saturday we also met with a guy named Barrett who gave us some feedback on if he could wear our watch along with John and Isaiah. They all gave us great feedback and we headed back to the lab with John and Isaiah to keep on working.

Once we got back was when more progress started to happen. Charlie made a prototype that worked with a good length and used velcro. I started to see how I good add my string designs to his prototype. Another thing we tried to do also was challenge the idea of using velcro, as isn’t the most fashionable things. Eric thought of using hooks as the main way to close off the watch strap which was a great idea. So going into Sunday we had two prototypes. One that used velcro and string for an aesthetic purpose, and one that used mainly hooks to avoid using as much velcro.

The MakeAThon was a long and tiring process but it taught me a few important lessons.

  1. Having a good attitude is everything. It is especially needed when you’re not even sure where you’re going yet.
  2. Sometimes getting angry or upset at someone isn’t even worth it. Especially if you’re working on a tight deadline.
  3. Even if you don’t know what to do, do something. Try something, talk to someone, research. Just do something.
  4. Teamwork makes the dream work.

Overall, it felt really good to have a working low fidelity prototype at the end of this, but I think it is equally important to recognize that even if we didn’t that would’ve been okay. We are college students with not that much time in a race to make an impact and the reality is that changing the world with a mind blowing idea and figuring it all out in 48 hours in unrealistic. Collectively all the students who participated this weekend gave up a lot of time and a lot of magic happened this weekend. I hope everyone is proud of their work regardless of what stage they ended at by the end of the MakeAThon.

What’s next is ordering a watch with our Amazon gift cards and create a more put together band for John so we can give him a watch with our band.