Continuing from last week, we visited the Fab Lab again this week. In this week, we were still separated into two groups, and we switched sections. This week, I learned how to build an electric circuit using the breadboard. It could be big, but then it could be very small and use to build a computer. I think this is very important to know about in today’s day, when we rely heavily on electronics. Before this week, I thought that as a business major, I would never get in touch in building an electric circuit myself, since I am not an ECE student. After this training section, I gained a better understanding of how to operate with the tools in the Fab Lab and the potential necessary tools for design.
After the Fab Lab training session, we entered the stage of prototyping. While we were waiting for the meeting with the Milestone Labs, we started planning again for our prototype. We used some other materials to redo our low-fidelity prototype and talked about our concerns on some of the ideas. Afterward, we met with the Milestone Labs together with Jenna. During the meeting, we discussed our project progress as well as our upcoming research plan, a meeting with the founder of the organization Yoga for Amputees. Again, we discussed our initial ideas and our low-fidelity prototypes. In the end, we came to the realization that some ideas we initially have may not be the most feasible idea to have for our product, including the idea of using magnetic tools and the idea of extending the frontal surface of the attachment.
After our team’s meeting with the Milestone Labs, we also met with the founder of Yoga for Amputees, who is an amputee and has a lot of experience working with different amputees across the United States. She provided us a lot of new insights that we had never considered prior to this meeting. She talked about how a relatively fixed ankle and curved heel of the prosthetic leg has contributed to the difficulties for amputees to keep balance. In this case, she suggests us to try to design a product that can allow some curved flexibility to the ankle but at the same time also prevents the ankle from “moving” horizontally (see video). In addition, she also suggests us to design a product with a flatter heel that can allow the amputee to have greater contact with the ground. She also brought up ballet prosthetics that has already existed in the market. We researched the ballet prosthetics and also found that the key to the balance of the ballet prosthetics was the different ankle design that ballet prosthetics have as compared to the normal prosthetics. Also, she mentioned that there would be different needs for different amputees due to the preferences of their prosthetic usage and what makes them feel secure. Therefore, we may be better off if we could talk to different types of amputees to gain what they think about the product so that we could bring customization to our designed product to meet users’ needs. Overall, we gained a lot of insights from the meetings with Milestone Labs and with the founder of Yoga for Amputees. From these insights, we will redesign our prototype and try to get to a more suitable solution.
I am a student who’s currently studying accountancy and management of information systems. I am graduating this year and entering the MAS program at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. I love programming and accountancy as much as I love taking photographs and learning how to play the Rubik’s cube. I love trying out new things and learning new skills. Learning how to make accessible designs utilizing digital making skills is one of the new skills I learned.
Hi Yingyi – this is great! I am excited you found that video regarding the “bend” we were trying to sketch. I think using that type of design in our printing would be really helpful in giving Jenna both the stability she needs alongside some flexibility of movement that an ankle provides. I think once we get some help with the Fusion360 design of something that can bend like that with rigid materials, we will be able to make great strides!
Hey! It is great that you guys met with the founder of Yoga for Amputees, she sounds like the perfect resource. It sounds like you have more ideas for a design now, it might also help to attend a Yoga class at the arc to understand the kind of movements that users would be doing.