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.
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