Author: hi9drvirginiaedu
the 14 hour work day, Haider, 1/14, blog post # 5
After getting done with a meeting for my patient project at 10 pm yesterday (the 13th), I started the day early at 8 am. Thursday has been all about planning, implementing, and rehearsing the presentation for both the patient project, and my personal health project. The patient team did a great job of incorporating both pictures, slides, and poster boards for the presentation. In addition, I had a lot of data for the PHP presentation so I am satisfied with the graphs that I have been able to generate. The idea of competing with my partner on the PHP has worked out really well and both me and my partner have been able to improve our overall metrics over the last 2 days. However, my partner’s sleep performance has been declining as well, understandably. I have also been working on finishing up my reverse engineering project and plan to submit it sometime soon.
I had a great time participating in the process of innovation in medicine this J term. No doubt there were a few sleepless nights, but thats what engineers are supposed to strive on, right?
Progress Update, Haider, 1/13
A lot of progress has been made on the patient tunneling project, the personal health project, and the reverse engineering project. Over the last 3 days, the tunneling project has made 3 iterations of prototypes for their final design. Each iteration added improvements in functionality, size, and portability for the patient. The team also met with the patient on 3 different occasions to gauge feedback on the prototype and made improvements to it accordingly. All of this progress and data was documented with photos and videos and will be presented tomorrow.
For the personal health project, both me and my partner suggested improvements to each others’ proposals in order to get a better method of changing metrics. Specifically, me and my partner started a personal competition of the number of steps taken each day. No wonder it helps to have android smartphone with pedometers.
In terms of the reverse engineering project, most of the details in the syringe have already been added. Features that still remain to be added are the threads on the end, putting the parts together as an assembly, and making properly annotated and labelled engineered drawings.
-Haider
Class 4, Haider, 1/7/16
For the patient health team projects, the team was interested in 2 projects and therefore found 2 subgroups with a 4,2 split. I am in the 4-member subgroup that will focus on the issue of tunneling. Tunneling occurs when the insulin that is being delivered by an insulin pump starts pooling out of the patch outside the skin and therefore gets wasted. One possible solution to tunneling is to integrate materials into the patch that will change color as soon as they get in contact with insulin. Another possible solution is having an electrode in the patch that will sense changes in the conductance of the skin and will notify the user about possible via a micro controller.
For the personal health project, we have data for 3 days. Starting from tomorrow, we are going to start to make changes in our partner’s metrics to see if they result in any possible outcomes. We will also present our ideas on Friday and see if we get any useful critique of our proposed techniques.
Day 3, Haider, 1/6/16
The patient health team project has a come a long way in problem realization so far. In a mere 2 days, the team has met with the patient twice in order to collect data about her condition and survey for potential areas of improvement. The team found a couple of leads and presented them in class on Wednesday. The session gave us useful feedback so that we can expedite the search for a need.
For the personal health project, Vi and I have both started gathering quantitative data about each other’s physical conditions. These metrics were plotted on a journey map and will be tweaked in the upcoming sessions in hopes of improving the partner’s physical characteristic, which is sleep in Vi’s case.
Day 1 of Class, 1/5/16, Haider Inam
Today I am developing my knowledge of the distinct projects of patient health team project, personal health project. For the patient health team project, I am doing background research on diabetes mellitus and on the specific case of Jamie, the patient. I also set preliminary objectives for the personal health project and am researching ways to track my partner’s daily activities. This background research for both projects will aid in ensuring that the best decisions are made for the projects on the second day. I am also working on my sketching, visualization, and prototyping skills ahead of the first assignment which is due on Wednesday, the 7th. I am also doing readings on design thinking and biodesign to further my understanding of design as a whole.
-Haider
BME Design 