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As our first exercise preparing for Project 3, we brainstormed as groups interested in the different categories of the Create the Future contest. You can see the categories for this contest on the right side of the home page here. Right away I was interested in Medical Supplies because I am actively pursuing majoring in nursing. A few other students and myself brainstormed several areas in which we thought we could aim to improve or increase the quality of technology, medical benefits, and convenience for the greater population, etc.

Here are just a few examples of ideas that we came up with:

hospital waiting rooms 

casts

internal monitoring systems 

NICUs (Neonatal intensive care unit) 

pre-natal and post-natal care

sterilizing supplies

Diabetes monitoring devices 

After the exercise was completed, we had about 65 ideas. We eliminated several options in order to find a project that our group members would be interesting in working with, and finally, we decided to collaborate on internal diabetes monitoring systems. 

Our guiding research question was: How can we improve internal monitoring of blood glucose levels in patients with Type 2 diabetes?

Initially, our idea was to create an internal monitoring devices for blood glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. We thought that the device would be placed in the arm near the bicep, which is an area that is easy to access and would not require surgery to insert or remove.

For a precedent study, we evaluated similar methods of monitoring systems for diabetes, and found that our idea had already been conceptualized in just the past year. Here is a link to the Google page which lists results for the preceding devices that we found. It was helpful for us to know the ways in which this kind of device had been designed in the past so that we could aim to design a better model. Many of the former models required an external component to be fully functional (including the ability to communicate with your Smart Phone.)

We wanted to avoid any need for needle pricks and any external components to our device. Therefore, our ideal product is something that will be exclusively internal and yet still able to communicate with your Smart Phone so that a patient may constantly access their important electronic information. This would also help in treatment situations so that the doctor may have easy access to their patients’ records.

Further identifiers and descriptors of our product include: a device in your arm (near the bicep), connected to an application on your phone which interprets your statistics for the contents of your blood and including the levels of insulin, cholesterol, and glucose. One benefit of this product would be alerting a patient as to when their levels are unstable or too high.

Here are two images that we designed for the visual prototype of our device and the Smart Phone application:

We considered that one con of our product might be possible ethical concerns, seeing as it would require patients to insert a chip into their arm. However, as an additional research step, one of our team members also surveyed 9 people who have Type-2 Diabetes and found that they all said they would be interested this product and that they would pay up to $500 out of pocket for the service our product would provide. 

From the research we collected, we learned that • “29.1 million people in the United States have diabetes” • High death rates have rose to an estimated 3.4 million deaths in the world from high blood sugar levels in this disease • 50 percent of people with diabetes die of cardiovascular disease, primarily heart disease and stroke. (Source)

As a final reflection, I want to say good work on the final project and throughout the semester to those of you who put in your best effort! It was really interesting to work with some of you, and hear ideas from different perspectives and backgrounds. It was good for me to take this class as a way to view the world through the lens of an empathetic, innovative design thinker, something that I had never done previously. I have definitely focused my thinking in this area and have incorporated creativity into my daily life by pursuing one small creative project or thinking activity per day. Yesterday I arranged flower bouquets at the restaurant where I work and today I put up some posters and decorations around my desk area to create an atmosphere conducive to studying. In the coming weeks and months, I hope to continue expanding this way of thinking so that it becomes a lifestyle for me.

I am a pacifist. I think protesting serves more towards creating problems than solving them. I have never been involved personally in a protest, but have done research on them for paper writing and witnessed them and the affects of it. I think protesting enable people to be violent/stupid/apathetic towards the well-being and consideration of others. Some people might say that they are protesting “for a good cause”, but I don’t believe there is such a thing. There are far, far more efficient and effective ways to resolve an issue than marching  around waving signs in peoples’ faces.

On Wednesday, when we briefly discussed diversity in empathetic design, it reminded me of an experience I had earlier this year when I got some earth shattering news.

My best friend’s brother, Josh, passed away on January 30th of this year.

Joshua fought a battle in his body for four years against Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. His loving family of 9 siblings stood by his side through his battle. The morning of his passing I went to be with them at Children’s Hospital, where we spent several hours sitting around the Ronald McDonald house not knowing what to say or do.

Now that I can look back on that day, I realize what a blessing it was for their family to be able to live, eat, and rest inside the Ronald McDonald house through the course of Josh’s sickness through the support of volunteers who worked there to give hope to families who had very little. 

For our Project, Team Octopi developed “The Efficination Station.” We initially intended to design a useful alarm clock that was more pleasant to wake up to than the grotesque, warped, blaring sound of your average $30.00 Samsung nightstand alarm box contraption. However, after meeting and discussing at length idea after idea from each team member, we ended up combing many ways in which you can make your morning more pleasant, efficient, and easy at a low-cost price!

Here is how we designed our team to organize Project 2 when we discussed Empathy and work shopped on February 25th:

Diego: Primary Presenter/ Idea Coordinator

Hannah: Public Relations & Peace Keeper

Zoe: Head Chief Leader of Direction & Administration

Connor: The Enforcer & Sketcher

Katie: Procurer of Snacks

Tyler: George Clooney

Dewen: Design Implementation/ Innovation

As “Head Chief Leader of Direction and Administration”, I was in charge of assigning tasks, making sure important aspects of the project were included in the process and presentation, and taking notes during discussions with our team.

I was gone on vacation during the lecture when our team work shopped to design prototypes for our project, but I came home to discover that they had brainstormed several ideas and made some great sketches of our “Efficination Station.” The name of our product was something we came up with as we revised and streamlined our additions to the project. We also used the time during lecture when we met with Emily over Skype to assign presentation slides and topics of discussion for each individual team member. The presentation assignments are as follows:

Connor Beach ~ Artist

Diego Vinasco-Alvarez ~ Overview of Product

Zoe Anderson ~Defining the Problem

Katie Boggess ~Use Explanation

Hannah Boman ~Intended Audience

Tyler Jacobs ~Design Process

Dewen Li ~Future Improvements

Each team member authored 1 or 2 slides on their topic and discussed it shortly during the presentation.

Our Efficination Station combines a morning alarm system which can pleasantly alert you at your chosen time to seize the day; a forecast and news screen for the day, your personal agenda, a built-in coffee or tea maker, draws for storage, and a central charging platform for your phone and computer. It was our goal to design something that would make morning routines more efficient by localizing essential items for your day to run smoothly.

Something we could have done to improve our project was work on is to test our project in a real life situation by making a physical prototype or by surveying students in order to see our our product would be received.

Overall, however, we worked very well as a team, put some awesome creative time and ideas into our project, and had FUN!!!