Our meeting on Tuesday was definitely different than most of our classes. We were able to meet all of the other participants of April’s makeathon. I was very appreciative of this event because I will not be in town during the makeathon meeting. Although we were not able to bring others into our teams, we were able to hear all of the professors speak about their experience in this makeathon and hear from more mentors.
First, we heard from Professor Sachdev explaining the format of the Makeathon and how this “prototype” has come to be. We also heard from Dr. McDonough. I had not been able to meet her previously and I really appreciated her candor. She brought out a great amount of information from the mentors and she was un-apologetically curious.
We met new mentors as well. The most interesting thing we saw was how one individual has adapted to put on his socks. Without complete control of his fingers, he is not able to open a sock to put on as many people do. Thus, his mom has sewn 3 loop on each sock so that he can just loop his fingers through to pull rather than grip the sides of the sock. I couldn’t help but think of how useful that design would be for elders with arthritis. Gripping small things can be difficult as you age and your joints stiffen, so this design has a product for a much larger user base than just her son!
Overall, the event was very nice in understanding how the Makeathon will be organized and executed, as well as meeting the other participants. I hope there will be a time for us to collaborate with some of the other students, rather than being silo-ed in our classes. One of the key next steps our group has is to make a Fusion360 model of our design and print the prototype for Jenna to try. Jenna has been very interested in making her product from 3D printers, so understanding this medium and creating our prototype from a 3D printer would be really helpful for our team. Unfortunately, our team is 3 business majors, and we don’t quite have the technical knowledge to design everything we have drawn in Fusion360. Having another student help us with this design would be very helpful to completing our prototype during the weekend!
Moving forward, our team will be meeting early next week to create our Test Protocol and get back into the swing of things after spring break!
Hi Samantha,
This pre-event was so helpful. I honestly didn’t know what to expect of the Make-a-thon beforehand. It was nice collaborating with the new experts and students in the session. Also don’t get discouraged because your all business students. You guys can definitely figure it out, just put in a bit of extra time. Also the staff at the maker lab are super hands on and if you have the file they’ll help you print it out. You got this!