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!
Since you guys are directly building for racers, you should heavily consult Arielle on how to incorporate some of your tech into her product. They’ll be using gloves to race anyway, so if it can be seamlessly integrated, I think that would be truly impactful.
It’s great to see that your team has narrowed down the direction you are going in. In the research for my own team’s project (attachable treads for more grip when walking on ice) we actually found out that winter tires you hydrophilic material. Hydrophilic is the opposite of hydrophobic, so while hydrophobic material repells water, hydrophilic material is the opposite (this article is a good overview https://powermodo.com/hydrophobic-hydrophilic/). The one thing I would caution against using hydrophobic materials is that since it repels water, it is possible that the hand rings will actually become more slick, and thus harder to grip in the rain. I suggest you do more research into the differences between these materials before settling on one or the other.