Author: davidflorianjr
Semester Review
The key to this class’s success was Professors Chen and Allen’s openness to different ideas. A lot of professors encourage students to be creative, but it often feels like the students’ designs that are closest to the ideas held by the professor receive the highest grades. This was not the case for this class because the instructors generally seemed pleased with any design as long as long as the design evolved with the feedback of the clinicians.
I am still unsure if I like the grading of this class. A commonly held thought is that students need to be graded in order to be motivated. This class is proof that this is not the case because it is largely “ungraded,” and my peers and I have put in a substantial amount of time into our designs. The motivation comes from the ability to design around a need that we are interested in. The reason I put ungraded in quotations was because at the end of the semester we do receive a grade, and it is slightly stressful to not know your stance in the class.
One of my favorite classes was the low fidelity prototype workshop with the A-school grad. I had thought that most initial prototypes were done on CAD, but being able to see and touch a prototype is invaluable. Another one of my favorite classes was the SPARK guest speaker. Working at SPARK would be my dream job because I love makerspaces.
The Simulation Room (Review of Project)
Thoughts on the video project:
I definitely enjoyed the format of our final project. However, I did not realize that making a 5 minute video would take so long! I felt like our project was too complicated to explain in 5 minutes. This time constraint made me question which aspects of our design were absolute necessities. I know that this video was not meant to be a pitch, but I saw this project as a stepping stone to the video that could eventually be used to explain to investors our design.
The coolest part of our project was being to able to film in the simulation room. Usually, the simulation room is used as a space for medical students to practice and to have their technique scrutinized. The simulation room is equipped with 5 cameras and two omnidirectional microphones. The room can be rearranged to mimic most hospital settings such as the NICU. It was the perfect room to test my team’s device which required the proportions of a hospital room. If any future students are reading this I suggest inquiring about the simulation room.
Feedback was also crucial in the success of our project. It was interesting to listen to the critiques from the nursing staff and doctors. No one outright objected to our idea, but some nurses were less open to our design. It was funny because older nurses were the ones who were less open. The inventors of Accuro talked about how you had to discern which doctors were just stuck in their ways when judging the general opinion of your device.
Invent a Device for the Need
In the midst of the final project, my team has made the mistake a couple of time of coming up with design and then having to invent the need. We would brainstorm a really cool device and if it didn’t fit our original need we would try and find a need this device can address. We were unable to find any actual needs for these spontaneous device ideas. This showed my group that the design process is not bidirectional. You cannot invent a need for the device. In fact, I would argue that identifying the need is more important than coming up with a really “cool” device.
One personal problem that I have noticed when designing solutions is my need for practical designs. A practical solution is always more appealing to me than an abstract solution. I lean towards designs that I could prototype as an undergrad with my limited amount of information. I realized that my practical mindset was narrowing my design options, and I have tried to consider more intricate solutions because some needs are more complicated than others.
Luma A. and David F. a healthy adventure
We did the formal data presentation in class which summarized the objective data collection. However, to fully understand the a health goal, the emotional and mental progress of the person needs to be taken into consideration. Thus, our blog post is conducted in an interview format to synthesize the objective and subjective findings.
David: Do you feel like a more regular sleep schedule made it easier for you to make it to class on time and feel less stressed?
Luma: While I wish it was that simple, David, I still felt very tired when I woke up each morning regardless of when I went to sleep. This made it harder to wake up with ample time to make it to my morning classes.
David: The data that we collected supports that a regular sleep schedule did not help you with your tardiness. The Fitbit data shows that you woke often during the night and underwent many periods of restless sleep. Do you think your tardiness was because you were not receiving quality sleep?
Luma: It is possible that a lack of quality sleep at night is contributing to my ability to wake up feeling rested, making me more prone to snoozing and oversleeping. I feel that when I go to bed, I don’t often think about whether or not I will be getting quality sleep – but rather, whether I have fulfilled a number quota. Along those lines, it will be interesting to see how sleep quality affects my morning energy.
David: I have one more question. The stress questionnaire showed no change in stress level from one week to the next. In the initial interview on the first day of class I felt like tardiness would affect your stress level. I know that we did not decrease your tardiness, but do you still think that tardiness affects your stress levels?
Luma: I think the more I make it a priority to be on time to my arrangements, the more stressed I become when I am tardy. This is definitely a good thing, because it motivates me to work hard to change my habits. This is a habit that has formed from a young age, so this project has made me conscious of the extent of my tardiness.
Luma: My turn to interview you now! The results of several weeks of data collection allowed us to track the usual amount of time you spend doing a variety of activities throughout the day. In 24 hours, approximately 20% was spent socializing, 11% was spent doing homework and 15% was spent doing non-descript activities. How did seeing the breakdown of time spent in your day affect the way you viewed your time management?
David: I realized that a lot of my day was spent in transition. And after a couple of days of tracking my day I started to make a plan in the morning in order to minimize the amount of time spent walking to other places. In a way, I was procrastinating by moving around to different places and I decided I needed to change that. I feel like if there was another week of data collection you would see less time in the “other” slice of the pie and more time in the “gym” slice. The socializing slice (including watching youtube and listening to spotify) surprised me with it taking up one-fifth of my day! Even when logging my time I didn’t realize that socializing was taking up so much of my day.
Luma: One of your biggest stated reasons for not going to the gym was your ability to finish your schoolwork for the day. With this in mind, can you compare your schedule and mood on days you went to the gym versus when you didn’t?
David: I felt great after leaving the gym because I get rid of a lot of extra energy that can cause me to get distracted while working on my homework. When I don’t go the gym I find that I have more energy and with this I procrastinate. While I am studying I also go back and forth on whether I have time to go to the gym or not and this also causes me to be distracted and stressed. I am most productive when I decide to go to the gym in the morning and then follow through with this plan so that I don’t feel guilt or have extra energy.
Luma: Your score on Lay’s General Procrastination Scale (http://www.yorku.ca/rokada/psyctest/prcrasts.pdf) at the beginning of the PHP indicated that your procrastination is not strongly related to an inherent personality trait, which formed my interventions and data collection moving forward with the project. What do you believe to be the root causes of your daily procrastination, if not a personality trait?
David: When I am not interested in an assignment or perceive an assignment as really difficult I will procrastinate. This uninterest or fear of starting an assignment outweighs the consequences of starting an assignment late and being stressed out. Now, I see that the consequences of procrastination results in less gym time, more stress and overall an unhealthy outlook in life.
David Florian – First Entry
My name is David Florian, and I am from Charlotte, North Carolina. I really enjoy woodworking and building electrical systems. I recently built my own CNC router which allows me to turn many of my ideas into tangible objects. Through this class I wish to gain further insight into design and modeling in the biomedical world. I would like to successfully design a solution for a biomedical problem and learn about the next legal steps to make a prototype marketable.
BME Design 