Final reflections
Although I was kinda nervous when I first heard the assignment, I thought the videos ended up being a great way to showcase each groups’ work on the medical team project. Like many of the reviewers mentioned, the videos allowed for a ton of information to be packed in; much more so that can be included in a PowerPoint presentation. It also took off all of the pressure of presenting on the day of, which made it so I could focus more on the other groups’ videos. I thought every group did an amazing job at showing their entire design process and how they got to their prototype, particularly since almost no one had previous video editing experience. A lot of the groups used the whiteboard approach for some aspect of their video, which I thought worked really well to show each step, as well as the design consideration. I also thought that the time lapse of the prototyping process that Team 5 (Sanaa, Nick, Maddie) did was a really cool, attention-getting way to show the criteria and tools that made up their design. I also thought that Team 2’s (Alex, Casey, Kelly) whiteboard visualization of the change in the inflation was a really clean and straightforward way to show the function of their device. Each group took a different approach with their video, but each one really narrowed in on the important aspects of their project.
Overall, the class ended up being a lot different than what I expected. I thought more of the class was going to be like the last half, where we worked on the Medical Center projects. But even with that, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t really know much about the whole design process, and I definitely learned a ton about the details and iterations that go behind just coming up with an actual need. I think it would have been better to shorten the PHPs and add moved to the clinical observations and final project sooner so that we would have had more time to go through more iterations and come up with a better prototype. It was definitely different than any other class I have taken. It could be frustrating sometimes when there were only vague guidelines for the projects, but I think that was really needed for a lot of this class, it pushed everyone to think independently and also gave us an idea of what design is really like. In the real world, no one is going to hand you all of the guidelines for some product you want to make. You have to do research, ask questions, and find out for yourself what needs to get done. This class really showed all the time and thought that goes behind every design, and I definitely have a newfound appreciation for any sort of medical device I see.
BME Design 