Author: tomzanger
Viewing Party
First off, I really likes that we did videos instead of a presentation. It gave us significantly more creative licence which is important in design thinking, and allowed us to convey significantly more information in the form of visuals as well as words.
It was fun to see how we each focused on different things and used different styles in our videos. My group focused a lot on our iterative process and the prototypes that we produced. Others focused more on their observation process and development of their idea. Both are very important parts of the design process. I also wanted to comment that I thought Kelly/Alex/Casey’s presentation was very well strung together and every second of the video flowed into the next very well, capturing our attention and telling a great human-centered design story.
I did not realize how short 6 minutes was in terms of footage, and I do wish that we had been able to cover more. We did not really get to talk about other ideas we had for our design because we were stretched almost to time just cramming in information about the prototypes that we actually made. I thought that our pneumatic idea (as Professor Somers brought up) was the best because it would not interfere with activities or be as likely to catch on things during sleep/bathroom trips, but we did not think it would be possible to prototype something for it as quickly as it would be with simple string. Using magnetism or electricity would have been awesome, but we ended up deciding it was not a good idea because then it would limit use of electronics equipment while in the glove and could have other consequences. We did not talk all that much about morning stiffness and looking back maybe we should have forgone some information about the patient population to describe the problem we were solving in greater depth.
In the end I am coming away with some video editing skills, which is a really cool tangible skill from such a conceptual, process-oriented class, and another good reason for the video projects. As a student very interested in design, having this video in my portfolio will be very helpful as well.
The Process
The design process takes much longer than I originally thought. After identifying a problem, in addition to inventing the product itself, someone must do market research, cost analysis, drum up funding, and find a way to manufacture and distribute it. For medical devices design, the FDA and special regulations come into play and must be considered. Even then, people may not actually want to use it. This multifaceted process means even good designs can easily fail. To be honest, it is very intimidating to risk putting years of your life into a great design that can go belly-up because it was not marketed well to hospitals or they were not interested in changing their system. During the Spark Engineering and Design guest speaker’s presentation (can’t remember her name…) I wondered if there were any companies that fully specialized in bringing ideas into production. Spark helps with the design work, but it seemed like it was still up to the inventor to turn the product into a company. I think this would be a good niche to fill for inventors who are scared of throwing themselves fully into an idea or who just don’t want to deal with all of the hassle associated with bringing an idea to fruition.
Tom and Kelly’s Findings
Findings for Kelly
- The act of recording information about your food does make you more conscious of the decisions you are making. We addressed this a bit in class and it was very obvious to us that it was true in this type of personal data collection project.
- Kelly actually enjoyed the project and felt better overall towards the end.
- Kelly was very successful in reducing sugar intake throughout the duration. We did not even have to make incremental progress. It helps to pick a goal that you really want to achieve!
Findings for Tom
- Back pain cannot be solved through stretching alone; it is a multifaceted problem.
- Project was very one dimensional and had no easily measurable/quantitative outcome aside from increased flexibility (-4 to +2 on the V-sit). However, this was not really the purpose. Maybe should have selected a project with a directly measurable purpose.
- Back pain was reduced, but this may also be due to playing less basketball.
“Stretching” Myself Thin?
For the past few days I have been really slacking on my stretching routine. This is partly due to me not having much back pain, which is a side effect of my not playing any basketball lately. I have not felt like I have the time to go to the gym and hit the courts (I am somewhat stressed but certainly lying to myself) and so I have not put as much strain on my back. Also, I have been experiencing some knee inflammation, further deterring me from such a joint pounding game. However, both of these conditions should be temporary (I am getting into a PT appointment soon), so I think it is important to stay regimented with my stretching and keep up my core work so that I can hop right back in without hurting myself. I will strive to regain and improve my self control, sensei.
Tom Zanger First Post
My name is Tom and I am a 3rd year BME major and philosophy/computer science minor. I enjoy skiing, cooking, card games, and chess. I am taking this class because I want to do something innovative and creative. I plan to eventually found my own biomedical design company, so this is a small first step toward that goal. Hopefully I emerge with a honed intuition for sniffing out problems in patients’ lives and the know-how to generate unique technical solutions.
BME Design 