BME 401A
Week 1 Report
9/9/2017-9/15/2017
Prolonged muscle spasticity can accompany MS and some viral infections, especially when muscles are not being moved for long periods of time. These “spasms” can often wake up those who experience them during a night’s sleep since the limbs are still during this time. We are interested in designing and creating a device that can comfortably move a person’s legs in a left-right motion during sleep without waking up the person. Such movement has helped Dr. Morgan prevent these “spasms” in her legs in the past, but she does not have a device which can do it while she sleeps. Such a device may also boast sensing capabilities which can detect the onset of these muscle “spasms” or may operate on a periodic, programmable basis.
Week 2 Report
9/16/2017-9/22/2017
After having discussions with both Dr. Morgan and Professor Klaesner about the feasibility of creating a device such as the one that Dr. Morgan described, we decided it would be best to break this project down into two parts: an automated movement system which could be used to move the legs while asleep, and a sensor which would predict the spasms before they occurred as well as provide an output to the client detailing the duration and frequencies of the spasms. Because doing both parts in one year is not a realistic goal for just one group, we decided to collaborate on this project with another senior design group that is interested in working with Dr. Morgan. We plan to focus on the movement system, creating a device that would begin to rock the legs once a spasm is detected and hopefully decrease the violent spasticity Dr. Morgan is experiencing. This week, we worked on our project scope, and plan to revisit and revise it by next Monday by condensing the needs statement and refining the general specifications stated.
Week 3 Report
9/23/2017-9/29/2017
This week, we finished updating and revising our need statement and project scope. We also began doing background research on muscle spasticity, as at this point all we know is that i typically occurs in people with multiple sclerosis and viral-induced paralysis. We followed up with Dr. Morgan to get some articles she had mentioned in our original meeting that discuss the causes and origins of muscle spasticity, as well as to learn more about the device we are currently using. We hope that having a better understanding of both the pros and cons of the device she is currently using will give us a better understanding of specifications for our own device.
We also began discussing how to move forward long-term with the senior design project. We decided that Erica will be giving the first presentation, Divya the second, and Devin the last presentation. We are also planning to meet up this weekend to discuss how we are going to divide the work for our preliminary report, as well as discuss what our next steps are in working on the project and discussing general areas of responsibility for the project as a whole.
Week 4 Report
9/30/2017-10/6/2017
This week, we focused primarily on researching and writing our Preliminary Project Report. We conducted a lot of research into both Restless Leg Syndrome and Periodic Leg Movements during sleep, as well as the drugs and medical devices that have been shown to be useful in treating those disorders. Based on this research, we concluded that the symptoms Dr. Morgan described to us are more consistent with Periodic Leg Movements, which changed how we approached our device to some extent.
Based on the information we gathered from this research as well as our previous conversations with our client, we developed a list of design specifications for our product. These design specifications focused on two main goals: creating a safe device that our client can use undisturbed throughout the night, and creating a device that is easy to use and accessible. We also created a preliminary Gantt chart with all the major milestones throughout the course of the class, and further discussed dividing up team responsibilities.
Week 5 Report
10/7/2017-10/13/2017
Erica gave the preliminary presentation for our project this week on Wednesday morning, so we focused on preparing the information and graphics for that earlier in the week. We also turned in our lab notebooks and briefly talked with the group working on the sensing half of our device about meeting together later in the semester to make sure that our devices are compatible. We decided to meet after we have chosen a final product design.
We will now begin to draw up different product sketches and assign priorities to our specifications so that we can perform a Pugh analysis for each idea.
Week 6 Report
10/14/2017-10/20/2017
This week, we began working on our website. We created a website on Weebly and have begun setting it up, and plan to meet later this weekend to continue working on the website together. We also began individually brainstorming possible ways to create a device to meet the client’s need. We are planning to meet next week to further brainstorm as a group, and to lay out our next steps for the weeks ahead.
Week 7 Report
10/21/2017-10/27/2017
This week, we continued working on our website. We finished setting up our website on Weebly, with appropriate pages and subpages for each component of our project: project overview, design process, project timeline, about us, and the corresponded subpages for all of these as needed. We are planning on meeting this weekend to brainstorm possible ideas for our device and make a list that will be the basis of our Pugh chart.
Week 8 Report
10/28/2017-11/3/2017
This week, we met to discuss changes that needed to be made to our specs, need and project scope based on the feedback we got off our our preliminary report. Based on that feedback, we have generalized the client/market for our project need, and reevaluated some of our specifications to more accurately reflect both current best practices, as well as the safety and comfort of the client. We also discussed new specifications to specifically deal with client safety and comfort.
We also began brainstorming possible solutions to our need, starting with the type of motion required and the apparatus used to create and control this motion. We are planning to meet Friday 11/3 to finish brainstorming and begin moving forward on determining which device option best meets the client needs.
Week 9 Report
11/4/2017-11/10/17
We met again this week to continue brainstorming for the project. We broke our device up into five categories, and each of us took one of the three remaining categories (power supply, motor/movement generation, and patient software interface) to continue brainstorming. We then began researching our different brainstorming options to help us decide which device method will be the most feasible. We also met with Dr. Klaesner to discuss some questions we had about our design specs and the brainstorming process moving forward.
Week 10 Report
11/11/2017-11/18/2017
This week, we met with Dr. Morgan to discuss some of the possible design ideas we had for our device, as well as to ask her some design specification questions we had for her. We also conducted some research into possible movement types for this device. We plan to take all of the information gathered from the meeting, incorporate it into our specifications, and finalize our Pugh charts this weekend and over the Thanksgiving break.
Week 11 Report
11/19/2017-12/01/2017
These past 2 weeks, we compiled all of our research on the various parts of our device (movement apparatus, software interface, and power supply) and performed our Pugh chart analysis on each alternative. We met briefly with Dr. Klaesner to discuss the results of our Pugh chart and whether to add a vibrational component to our device. We decided on a final design, a platform on which the lower legs will rest that moves gently side to side. We completed our progress report, detailing the updates we have made to our need statement, project scope, design specifications, and design schedule/team responsibilities.
BME 401B
Week 1 Report
01/19/2018-01/26/2018
After finalizing our schedules for the semester, we decided upon several times during the week where we could meet to touch base on our project and work on prototyping our device. We looked into the materials that we will need to purchase for our device, and discussed the pros and cons of using wood or plastic in our design. We also began working on a CAD drawing of our final design to estimate the dimensions we will need. We are planning to reach out to Dr. Klaesner to ask if there are any people we could consult about materials.
Week 2 Report
01/27/2018-02/02/2018
On Monday, we met with Dr. Klaesner to discuss our concerns about using plastic for our project and the pros and cons of using other materials, such as wood and sheet metal. We decided that we should forego plastic as it is very expensive and difficult to work with using the resources and time available to us. We are in the process of looking into sheet metal boxes that we can order online. If we are not able to find a suitable ready-made option, we would like to contact South County VoTech to create a box for us. We also worked on making preliminary CAD designs with rough dimensions so we know how much material we need to order. We also obtained an Arduino from Dr. Klaesner and plan to decide soon whether an Arduino or a Raspberry Pie is better as a micro-controller.
Week 3 Report
2/03/2018-2/09/2018
This week, we researched our respective parts more specifically. We are planning to purchase essential parts on Sunday to begin building our device. We plan to meet on Sunday to do this.
Week 4 Report
2/10/18-2/16/2018
This week, we met and ordered our motor and our motor driver for our device. We spent a lot of time checking the specs out and making sure that they would interface with each other, as well as provide enough power to fuel our move our device. Once the parts come in (they should be here this weekend) we will begin working on controlling our motor via Arduino. Erica has been doing some research on H-drive circuits and believes this is the best way to control our motor and get it working the way it needs to. Our minimum goal for our proof of concept testing is to have either an Ardunio or Raspberry Pi controlling both our motors speed and direction. Ideally, we would also have it moving a platform of some kind, although we do not think the final platform will be finished by then.
Divya also finished up our CAD drawings for the platform this week. At our group meeting last week, we made some adjustments to the platform to make it easier and safer to build. This involved creating a deeper indentation in the platform so that users legs can be surrounded by padding without raising the leg level, which will hopefully maximize both patient comfort and safety.
Devin started looking into what needs to be done to set up verification and validation procedures for our device. When we meet this weekend, we will be splitting up the work for our verification/validation report and getting started on that as well.
Week 5 Report
2/17/2018-2/23/2018
The three of us met on Monday to begin connecting the Arduino to our motor driver and motor. We ordered an alternative motor driver because it can deliver the power needed to our motor which arrived on Wednesday evening. We also met Tuesday afternoon to lay out our verification and validation plans. For each specification, we came up with a method to test it and discussed what we would do in the event that we did not meet the specification. We also came up with primary and secondary client needs for our validation plan. We plan to meet on Friday to connect our new motor driver and finalize our verification plan.
Week 6 Report
03/02/2018
We met last Friday to connect our motor driver controller, Arduino, and power supply. We also wrote a rough preliminary code just to test whether the motor driver could run a motor in clockwise and anti-clockwise directions given a certain speed and time within the code. We uploaded this code into the Arduino and used a small motor we borrowed from Professor Widder to verify that this code worked. On Monday, we tried to connect our big motor to the setup in place of the small test motor, but for some reason, the big motor was not running with either the power supply or power delivered via the USB. We met again on Tuesday afternoon to revise our code to accept different serial monitor input values and change the speed of the motor accordingly, ad made a few other adjustments to the code. We connected this to the small test motor and it worked. The big motor worked as well, but we only want to use the big motor at the end of our project when all code and speeds are finalized so as to not damage it when testing out different codes and speeds. Thus, we are using only the small test motor for the proof of concept testing for this report. The rest of the week, we worked on our Verification/Validation report.
Week 7 Report
03/09/2018
This week, Devin presented on our Verification and Validation report. We also met to begin discussing how to translate the rotational motion of our DC motor into linear motion for our platform, as linear motors are prohibitively expensive. We found two potential options: one that uses gears to translate the rotational motion into linear motion, and one that uses a pulley system to move the platform back and forth, and are trying to decide which option would be the best for our specific information. We were wondering if you had any knowledge or insight this particular problem.
We also discussed a change to our software interface. When we originally did our Pugh charts for the software interface, we choose to build our own remote control rather than use a Bluetooth connection to a smart phone because we did not want to assume that the user would have a smart phone. However, our partner group has assumed that the user will have an iPhone to record data for their device, we are considering having the software interface be an iPhone app that controls the Arduino via Bluetooth. This would be both an easier solution to implement and an easier solution to use, and makes no noticeable changes to our other specs.
Week 8 Report
03/23/18
We ordered a new power supply that could provide our device with up to 10 A of current, since our previous power supply could only draw 5 A, which arrived over the spring break. Now, we are planning to meet on Sunday to continue developing our software interface and possibly go to Home Depot to buy supplies for the motor track and device casing. We will also need to order the parts for our remote control. We have decided on a mechanism similar to this for our motor track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zae2ZePQTwQ&t=275s
Week 9 Report
03/30/18
This week, we settled on the linear motion track as way we’re going to generate side to side movement for our platform, as we believe it will be the most reliable and work best with our specifications. After looking at the setup and layout for the reciprocating rack and pinion motion generation device, we think we would have a lot of issues getting our motor to move well enough to generate that motion. Erica and Devin bought the parts for the device both on Amazon and at Home Depot, and will begin building the device next week once the parts come in.
Divya is working to create a 3D printed version of the rack and pinion motion generating device. Although that’s not the device option we choose, we want to have a back-up plan in motion in case we encounter difficulties with the linear motion track.
Week 10 Report
04/06/18
This week, we received all the parts necessary for our linear motion track. We assembled them all together to make sure that all parts are compatible. The only compatibility issue that we had was that our motor shaft has a small piece sticking out of it which doesn’t allow us to attach the piece needed to pull the belt of the linear motion track. We plan to fix this by filing down the metal piece of the motor, as we do not believe this will negatively impact the functioning of the device.
We also took measurements to build both the platform base and the CAD drawings for the pulley support, and finalized our CAD drawings of the platform. This weekend, we will cut the wood down for the platform base and 3D print the pieces. Once we have these two pieces finished, we will be ready to build the platform.
Week 11 Report
04/13/18
This week, we 3D printed a few mounts and rises necessary for having all of our parts fit together neatly. We also filed down the metal piece that was jutting out of the motor so that it could easily fit into our linear motion track. We began to assemble all the pieces together, and bought some last minute things we realized we needed as we were putting things together, such as styrofoam for our base platform, different lengths and types of screws.
Erica and Divya will finish assembly of the tangible part of the device today, while Devin finishes up the Bluetooth software interface app today. Tomorrow, we will connect everything and make finishing touches, so we will be ready to verify and validate next week. We plan to finish verification and validation by Wednesday and then work on our final report and presentation at the end of next week.
Week 12 Report
04/20/18
This week, we performed all of our verification and validation testing on our device, as well as performing DesignSafe Risk Analysis, as part of our device’s safety verification testing. We determined that after mitigation steps, our device presents only a low risk. Divya created an assembled CAD model of our device, as well as a video demonstrating the exploded view of our device. Erica created CAD drawings with dimensions for all of the parts of the device. Devin finalized the software code for the device. We all compiled our work into the final report, which includes the results of our testing, our parts lists with specifications, a user manual, instructions for building the device, and the above mentioned CAD images.