[MUSIC] So in this video we have Professor Darrel Wakeman speaking to one of his students to get an over view of a project where they use the design thinking approach to help a child who had some impairment in his hands and they were able to come up with solutions for that child itself. And they have been able to train the organization that works with such children to leverage the same work flow to help more children. So it's an inspiring story, have a look. >> I run a class with a colleague in engineering which is about digital prototyping. And we start off Introducing students to 3D modeling software scanning and 3D printing. And then we divide them up into groups. And they work on design projects. The groups of students we have are a combination of engineers, this year it was mainly people from bio-engineering. And also industrial design students. So in groups of four, this year they took on various bioengineering projects. So I want to introduce Colin Heshmat, who's a student from mechanical engineering, who was in one of the groups in the digital prototyping class that exploited the particular characteristics of 3D printing In a very interesting way. So Colin, could you tell us a bit about the problem that you took on, how the group approached the design phase of it, and then how you went through to modeling and 3D printing? >> Sure, so our problem was with a certain individual from child care facility called Easter Seals in Chicago, he had a condition called agenesis of the corpus callosum which is a birth defect, a neurological birth defect that hinders his motor abilities so he had trouble independently eating. He was already working with a lot of speech pathologists and occupational therapists on this problem. So they were trying to re-train him to be able to independently eat. So they were trying out a lot of different off-the-shelf solutions and products that were created for that purpose. From what we've learned in class such as we got a quick taste of some new CAD software, some 3D scanning, and also 3D printing. And it was kind of a perfect project for this class because we were able to utilize all of those things, and it was kind of necessary that we, we needed to utilize all those things in order to tackle this challenge in the best way we found possible. >> What did you find were the problems with existing utensils? >> The main issue was, his grip was very different from normal grips. He had more strength and less strength in certain areas and he just could not comfortably hold a normal utensil and some of the other products that they were using, such as oversized handles and kind of longer handles that could wrap around. He had trouble actually manipulating them, and picking them up, and setting them down. Yeah. >> So how did you start working on what might be a more appropriate set of shapes for utensils for Jeremy? >> At first, we really didn't touch any software. It was really great. We had a team of four Individuals that were from different colleges Industrial Design, General Engineering, Bio Engineering and so we all kind of have a unique perspective on the problem and we used quiet first we took kind of shape things in certain ways. Then we had a several conversation with individual that worked with Jeremy. They seemed to think that the best way to approach this problem was to actually make a personalized grip. It wasn't obvious at first, but eventually it became obvious that we needed to bring Jeremy clay, and have him grip it and shape it with him. And then take that, scan it, and do what we want with it. We were able to obtain a really complicated, probably impossible to CAT on your own, shape that we were able to replicate because of all the tools we got to learn in that class. >> I mean, I think that the biggest insight that the group brought to the whole project was how you take the lump of clay that is specific to Jeremy's hand, and is therefore, going to be usable and comfortable. But then, how you develop a workflow or whatever that takes that shape and turns it into something which becomes a more usable utensil. >> See we're working with the Easter Seals to try and help them understand our process to help them do that on their own, in house. It was very interesting what the future holds for personalized objects. >> What was the next stage of the process that you established? >> So we took a lot of lumps of clay up to Jeremy, Play-Doh, too. And we had him grip it. We were there with a speech pathologist, an occupational therapist. So they helped Jeremy get him to hold the clay. We kind of stuck it on a fork so he could grip it as he would grip a normal utensil in the way he saw fit. It was soft enough to where it would change shape. And when we got it to a certain shape that saw that would be pretty awesome, we tacked them up and headed back to campus. And then we used a 3D scanner, and we scanned this lumps of clay and so we're able to get this kind of geometry on the computer. From there, we are able to manipulate and actually create something we could stick on silverware. >> And I feel the thing that was really interesting about that is that most of the lumps of clay ended up as fairly big, right so? >> Yeah. >> How did you construct the 3D print so that although it was big on the outside, it wasn't going to be heavy or expensive? >> With a 3D printer you can actually change densities when you're printing it layer by layer. So we really played around a lot with those settings, so we were able to print really dense prints and some that weren't so dense, so some were really light, some were really heavy. We didn't really know what would be best for Jeremy, so we just tried everything, and we brought that to him later to see what he was most comfortable with. >> Right, how did that work out, what was his reaction? >> It was very exciting for all of us. I don't really know if Jeremy was aware of with how we made it. But the results were pretty astounding when we went. We have like three or four different models that we gave him. And one of them in particular, he was able to actually pick a certain utensil geometry up, and put it down, and rest his hand on the table with it comfortably. And this was kind of exclaimed by one of the speech pathologists that was working with him, who was only a half a semester long project, so I think the progress in that moment was kind of worth all of the effort. And it was pretty amazing to get physical evidence that this actually works this actually needs a difference. >> And that was pretty interesting because I think up until that point nobody really source a bad. Him being able to put something down and pick it up the same way. >> Before we met Jeremy, we got a couple video of how he used silverware. And he was able to hold this silverware, and then when he wanted to put it down he would just drop it. >> So somebody else would have to come and pick it up. >> Exactly. Somebody else would have to be there to give him silverware, to help him hold it, and this was a pretty huge step. >> Absolutely. So as well as being more comfortable, and enabling to do things, it also made him a lot more independent. >> Yes. >> Because he didn't have to have somebody hanging around to pick it up when it fell. >> Yes, before he could even use these special utensils, off the shelf solutions, he was getting fed through g-tubes. There's been amazing progress, I think, with the team there. >> I mean, one of the things that you said a little while ago was that you were particularly interested in establishing a process that the home could use themselves. So that you guys, having set up the project and devised a way of doing it, then, they could do it themselves, essentially, for these applications and then for other things. >> When we were doing this, it was really kind of interesting that this wasn't already standard practice. And when I asked them about it, I was like no one else has tried this? No one else has, you don't know of any other conferences that you've gone to that anybody's like attempted this? This and they said no, this is the first time. They were interested in being able to use our process not only for Jeremy, but a lot of other patients there that had similar physical ailments. So it was pretty exciting to do this project and have a sense that this could help a lot more people than just the individual that we were helping at the current time. >> Sure, but the end of the project you were thinking about what specifications, scanner, and what kind of printers they would use, and so on. >> Right. >> And you're still carrying on with that? >> It's very confusing now to figure out a way to do this, and then have them do it replicate easily like it we want to to put this snap or some of the feature and cad that. So it's we we're trying to figure out a way to do this in such a way that it's not, like, over cumbersome for them. When we were giving a presentation the gentleman from Autodesk mentioned that we called it the custom utensil grip, and he said well actually it's personal. It personalization that you're doing when you go to like a car lot and like a blue car, a red car, a green car. But that's kind of you can get it custom car with this grip. It's taking this beyond customization into the realm of personalization. >> You like say a little bit about what you discovered about the capabilities of 3D printing as a technology. >> I think the one shocking thing about 3D printing was not what it does by itself but what it does when you pair it with other technologies, like 3D scanning, and how radical it can become. And I think that in the future, localized manufacturing is going to become a huge player, and it's pretty exciting to see it unfold. If we hadn't of had 3D printing there is no way we could have gone to a molder and machined something. The costs would have just been too much. When I came to the university, 3D printing was already everywhere so I was spoiled in that sense. The next generation of students I think will have 3D printing as something that they buy as a normal printer. I think it will be almost as common as just like printing out paper. So it's pretty incredible, what's going on. >> Yeah, I think you're right. Okay, so thank you to Colin for showing us and talking about your work and hope this fits in with the, I hope this is of interest and fits in with the rest of the course. [MUSIC]
