STEM II, AKA: Assistive Technology (AT), runs from the end of C Term all the way through D Term. It builds upon skills learned earlier in the year: project management, professional correspondence, scientific design, etc. to provide insight into creating a product for a client as opposed to simply conducting independent research. I played the role of Chief Informations Officer (CIO) in my group, so my responsibility was to write our grants, communicate with our client and with our other professional contacts, write lab protocol, and generally ensure the integrity of our data and our scientific claims. TLDR: my job was to manage the information. I had the genuine privilege of working in Circuit du Soleil, a group consisting of Grace Qiu (CEO), Aansh Patel (CMO), Adel Benchemam (CTO), and Andrey Kalashnikov (CTO). Without further ado, here is the CircuitBrush: a novel approach to autonomous oral care.
Moderate to severe arm impairment from Cerebral palsy can make brushing one’s teeth challenging, and in some cases, impossible without external assistance. This poses a significant threat to quality of life, jeopardizing both physical health and independence.
To create a retainer-based toothbrush that uses moving brush heads to simulate traditional toothbrushing. Client X should be able to operate the CircuitBrush without the use of their hands and without the aid of a Personal Care Assistant (PCA).
Here is a step-by-step approach to building what would eventually become our final prototype (before the AT Fair). We plan on iterating CircuitBrush over the summer, but for now, what we have is described in detail in the prototype overview (Instruction Manual) to the right. We went through a few iterations (and many failures, nearly-missed fires, and sleepless nights) to get to what you see in the Instructions.
When it came time to present during AT Fair, we wanted to showcase the as much of the CircuitBrush's story as we could. We broke down components, tested them individually, and were able to give demos of the brush actually moving through our finalized design (#5 on the poster). It was a really gratifying end to what seemed like an impossible task at times.