Team: Fri-23 (Hussain Muhammed, Dhiren Patel, Anshul Keswani, Varunan Varathan)
This Design Project was definitely my favourite as we were given very little guidance on what we were supposed to do. Instead, our team was given an issue and were tasked with finding solutions to the issue given a set of objectives and constraints.
This project was centered around a client who suffered from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. This inherited condition effects the formation of connective tissue within the body that is responsible for enabling musculoskeletal movement. This meant that many day-to-day tasks were challenging for our client, given that many set types of movements and muscle-flexing may lead to some form of pain. The client made pointers towards several tasks that he found difficult, that could be improved with an engineered solution. With that in mind, our group set out to create a household item that would enable our client to feel more independent in his day-to-day life.
Design and create a durable, lightweight, and affordable solution for our client to facilitate cutting with a knife with minimum muscle stimulus. This will allow the client to overcome the challenges of using a knife for a long period of time which may result in strains, dislocations, subluxations, and other complications since the client suffers from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. The solution must be able to be used by people other than our client as well.
Our client mentioned certain difficulties faced in the kitchen, particularly those that required a significant amount of force or the use of muscles in the hand. Therefore, our group set out to make a device that would make chopping and cutting easier for the client. The goal was to create a device that would not only facilitate our client’s requirements, but to also make the device unobtrusive to both the client and the family.
Photo by Pawl Czerwinski on Unsplash