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The main objective of this project was to help a member of the community, Kimberly, who had Usher’s syndrome. It is a rare disease that affects both the vision and hearing of the person meaning Kimberly was impaired. To help Kimberly, we were tasked with creating anything that could help her in her daily life. This project was part of the IMPACT (Interdisciplinary, Mentorship, Practice, Applied, Community, Transformative) initiative which is an an interdisciplinary collaboration that engages undergraduate and graduate students from Engineering, Biology/Science, Occupational Therapy and Medicine, McMaster Alumni, Community Healthcare Partners, and volunteer clients. To summarize, this project is about helping our community client Kimberly through the IMPACT initiative, by making something that can assist her in daily activities while keeping her syndrome in mind.
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Our group decided to make a cutting tool for her to process food items in the kitchen as she loves cooking!
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The first few steps in this project involved creating a Gantt chart (see Figure 1) to schedule our project, assigning roles, generating client notes, and refining our problem. The Gantt chart laid out a schedule for us to follow so that we would have enough time for everything and not have to rush any parts of the design process. When assigning roles based on strengths, I assumed the role of subject matter expert (SME), the same as last project. Although we’re supposed to strive for new roles, everyone in my group had already been SME before so a repeat role was inevitable. Thus, I was given the role as I was the best at performing the administrative responsibilities that came with it. When the project was first assigned, Kimberly attended several of our lectures which allowed us to ask questions and gain insight into her daily life including issues she faces due to her condition. We all took notes in these lectures which greatly helped us figure out what we could make to help her. When refining our problem, we changed our focus from a general invention in the kitchen, to specifically a tool that would help her cut/process food items.
In the beginning of the project, we outlined future testing plans for our prototype that we would create for each objective and constraint we had to consider as seen in Figure 2.
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Alongside future testing plans, we wanted to research four main topics that would be split between the four members in the group:
Figure 1: Shows the Initial Gantt Chart that contains the projected time required for each part of the project, Source: Own
Figure 2: Shows future testing plans for each objective and constraint of our design, Source: Own
Throughout the project, I contributed to almost every part whether it be fabrication, 3D printing, material purchasing, testing, or analysis. At the beginning of the project, I took my own client notes which greatly benefitted the team when I shared it with them. My research on materials was also really helpful to decide what material our final prototype would be made of. As subject matter expert, I was also responsible of keeping sources in a database throughout the project. I was also the member primarily responsible for buying materials to make prototypes like the cardboard prototype.
Our final fabricated prototype (see Figure 18) was pretty successful as it performed its function well. We made sure to use bright colours in its fabrication as it would be easier for Kimberly, our client with visual impairment, to see it. I think if refined a little bit more, it could actually be used by a community member like Kimberly to help them in cutting/processing foods in the kitchen which was the primary goal of the project. When presenting it, the model effectively demonstrated its function without any issues. Despite the model being functional, I think there were several ways we could have improved it. The side walls of the mechanism were primarily hollow to save weight but if given another chance, I think printing the walls with the insides not being hollow would have provided some much needed stability to our design making the overall user experience better. A final video of our model functioning can be seen in Figure 19 and a 3D rendering of our model can be seen in Figure 20.
Figure 18: Final “Slide-Chop” Prototype, Source: Own
Figure 19: Prototype in Function, Source: Own
Figure 19: Prototype in Function, Source: Own
Figure 20: 3D Rendering of Model, Source: Own