Prototype
The box cast we made for creating a custom silicone earmold
An earmold produced from the box cast
The silicone earmold fitted into the patient's ear
❭ During the second part of the year, we work in small teams in order to engineer new products – usually assistive technology devices. We meet with clients, conduct patent searches, design and build prototypes, demonstrate our products to expert judges, and deliver the products to our clients. Assignments include research papers, essays, reports, and presentations.█
Ariadne: Ethan Zhou (CEO), Kayla Vallecillo (CTO), Erica Dong (CIO), Armaan Priyadarshan (CMO)
Advisors: Dr. Yihao Zheng, Ph.D., Kevin Crowthers, Ph.D.
The earmold manufacturing process is unnecessarily convoluted, lengthy, and expensive, which can be inconvenient for patients who use hearing aids. This issue is especially severe for pediatric patients, whose rapid development lead to frequent earmold refittings. A poorly-fit earmold can cause severe discomfort for the patient, hindering social and mental development in children.
To address the problem, our project proposes a process to enable fast and convenient fabrication of custom earmolds on the hospital site itself, allowing pediatric patients to receive new earmolds in a much more timely manner. This process involves taking a custom ear impression of the patient, scanning and processing this ear impression into a box cast designed for casting an earmold, 3D-printing the box cast, injecting the box cast with silicone, and finally fitting the patient with the produced earmold.
The box cast we made for creating a custom silicone earmold
An earmold produced from the box cast
The silicone earmold fitted into the patient's ear