Stages from an idea to prototyping
Having decided that our group wanted to focus rheumatoid arthritis, we began drafting the needs and wants for our future prototype. I truly believe that this was such an essentially step. It really requires to get a good background knowledge on your area of focus and really makes you think on a deeper level what you are trying to do with a potential prototype . This step helps you prioritize all that you want to accomplish with a prototype and essentially points you in the direction of where you should start in actually building a prototype. However another step that I found extremely valuable and personally believe should be done in any design process before the physical building of a prototype is going back to a expert in the field of the topic you are focusing on. While you may observe alot or ask some good general questions when you interact with this expert the first time. It is very beneficial to go back with your needs and wants where you can ask more specific questions to fine-tune points and just in general get a realistic idea on whether or not your design has potential. For our group, after shadowing we met up with Dr. Pudhorodsky, a rheumatologist who had 31 years of experience in his field! He was a huge asset as when we went through our needs and wants with him, he gave his honest opinion on what we shared with him which allowed us cut and add things to our idea and in the end really helped us decide exactly what we wanted to do with our prototype. Additionally, given the fact that he himself also suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, he was able to give us a personal and unique perspective of what RA patients have to deal with on a daily basis which had us thinking of issues to address that we had not even realized existed. Based off our own research and Dr. Pudhorodsky’s advise we came up with the needs for our prototype : 1. does not disrupt user’s sleep, 2. allows RA patient to move the hand in a normal fashion, 3. does not cause additional pain associated with the arthrities, 4. reduces swelling of the joints of the hand. 5. it must be comfortable to wear. Our wants were: 1. device should be less than $500 for both hands, 2. should be durable and maintain full functionality for at least 2 yrs despite movement during sleep(e.g. rolling over on it), 3. Should be easily adapted to different hand shapes and sizes, 4. Should last 10 hours on battery so it can function for even the longest night’s sleep without being plugged in, 5. Should be at most 1.75kg so is not noticeable during movement, 6. Should be rechargeable. Finally coming out with both these needs and wants, we began building our prototype.
BME Design 