Intro:

“It is the final countdown”. This is what we have been building up for. This is where I have to put all my skills that I learned this past academic year to the test. We were given 2 genuine real patients that had a problem that they wanted to be solved. David was a quadriplegic who wanted a device to make him swim better and preform in the IRON MAN. And Cheryl who had Multiple sclerosis (MS) which made many common tasks for her difficult.

Skills I learned/developed:

✅ Material selection/research

✅ Concept Generation

✅ Design Iterations

✅ Slide design

✅ Slide Presentations

✅ Design reviews and applying feedback

Process:

• Our team looked into both patients, and it seemed that we were more interested in David. And so the design process began
• When generating concepts. 2 ideas seemed to be the most prominent, an automatic kicking device and a device that straightens his legs

First prototype

Second prototype

• After many design reviews and feedbacks, we decided to go by the kiss method. Keep it simple stupid. We decided to pursue the device that can straighten David’s legs insuring that it is simple but gets the job done well.

The GlideMaster

• The GlideMaster is simple, it just helps you swim better by making your body more streamlined. The way it does this is by being made of a material that is at the same density as water. But, this material was not easy to choose. Initially we had PLA, but then I tried using it in the pool and this happened

Device printed with PLA

The aftermath

• We had to find other materials, we tried using PETG which is stronger than PLA, but that didn't work because it was too brittle. And then we found the perfect material: PLA+. Basically PLA but better, and it worked perfectly