Discovering Solutions

This week, my team had the opportunity to actually utilize the software TinkerCad in class today. We were given the challenge of creating a logo and team name. With Arielle as our mentor we decided to have a team name with similar vibes to her company, Ingenium, which is a latin translation for the word ability. We named our team EVINCO, which is latin for overcome. We chose to use a lightning bolt and circle to represent the racing a wheel chair and the speed that comes with it.

Moving forward with our team name, we still were unsure what we wanted to pursue as our opportunity. With uncertainty on all of our minds, we reached out to Arielle and Adam and asked if we could return to DRES with the opportunity to observe a practice. Although it required waking up at 8am for practice on a Friday, Maryam, Kate and I learned an immense amount from attending. Once in the facility, Arielle showed us a typical racing wheel and explained the process of changing the tread on the hand ring once it wears out. First, an athlete must remove the current tread, which is attached with concrete paste and made out of the rubber form a wheel. To remove it it is necessary to reheat the concrete until it is sticky then scrape it off. Once it is off, the new tread must be cut, aligned to the handrail, and then pasted onto the rail. This process can take up to four hours, which is an obscene amount of time that student athletes need to spend fixing a critical part of their training routine. The pictures below show a hand ring with new, proper tread and one that has been used for months and needs to be replaced. Arielle said that she was going to wait until two weeks before the marathon before she actually changes her ring because the process is so long. Realizing what a hassle this is and how much of a demand there is for a long-lasting product that easily can be changed, we began brainstorming new ideas to EVINCO this issue

With this issue in mind, the ideation process continued with my group discussing different solutions that may solve this tedious problem. The ideas ranged from a cover to put on the tires when it rains, to a snap on for the gloves to increase traction. This is the first time I realized we may have more than one solution to overcome this issue; the question is which one is the most efficient? With uncertainty in what is possible, we will have a better idea of our product once we have the opportunity to experiment with more softwares and materials.