The four prototypes from the Sketch Prototypes round were all improved for the 2nd Round Prototypes. Following the 2nd round prototypes, the Helping Hand was chosen for the 3rd Round Prototype.
Digi-Scribe
From the sketch prototypes, the team learned about the importance of weight distribution, right/left handedness in design, volume controls, and headphone capabilities. The second prototype of the digi-scribe was designed to solve these problems. A Raspberry Pi microprocessor will probably be used for future prototypes and will use either IBM’s Watson or Google AI for text-to-speech AI.
Helping Hand Variant 1
For the 2nd round prototype, the helping hand was now built at full scale out of cardboard. The additional folding legs give a patient a spot to push down on while transferring from sitting. The legs fold up while using the walker.
Gait Harness
The biggest takeaways from the first prototype for the gait harness were that the design needed to be more female-friendly, rigid design restricts motion of the back and shoulders, force to the chest and torso is preferred over force into the armpits, and that stretchy straps don’t really help. On the 2nd round prototype, weight is distributed evenly across the chest, riding up is minimized due to having multiple belts, there are no rigid components, and size is adjustable.
PT Band
The strap comfort and fit, ergonomic profile, weight, and putting on and removal were all improved from the sketch prototype. Hardware used for future prototypes will be the Raspberry Pi microprocessor and the BerryIMU accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer. Complications moving forward with this idea are programming, complexity of workouts, and the product footprint.
