STEM II
STEM with Science and Technical Writing is taught by Dr. Crowthers, and is broken up into two main parts: STEM I and STEM II. In STEM II, students focus on an assistive technology project where students work in small groups to design a product to assist the lives of clients in the community. My group's project is detailed below...
StabiliWare: an Assistive Eating Device for Individuals with Parkinson's Disease
Vyshnavi Donthabhaktuni (CEO), Avani Jain (CIO), Sophie He (CTO), Jasmin Bella (CMO)
-Problem Statement and Engineering Goal-
Parkinson's disease affects many individuals around the world, many of whom experience tremors that could interfere with daily life. Tremors have the potential to interfere with eating, as tremors in the arm or wrist could cause food spillage when tryuing to autonomously consume food. As a result, our goal is to develop a device that mitigates the effects of tremors by reducing spillage in order to allow individuals with Parkinson's to feed themselves independently.
-Methodology-
Our process involved initial sketches for basic ideas and then refining and CADing our ideas in Onshape. From there, we 3D printed our CAD designs, carried out any necessary assembling, and then tested our designs. Testing would often reveal flaws, which we would keep in mind while further prototyping the design in Onshape or while considering a whole new approach to our engineering goal.
-Prototypes-
Before settling on our final design, we had the idea of a gyroscopic spoon (left) whose bowl rights itself when the handle shakes, sort of like a baby cup, but we soon found that the self-righting bowl would interfere with the motion of scooping, so we took a different approach. We considered developing a motorized spoon (right) whose motor and power supply were integrated into its handle and caused a cover to rotate 180 degrees around the spoon bowl to prevent spillage. Unfortunately, questions soon arose about fitting all the wiring and motor inside a spoon handle, along with concerns about how to keep the spoon dishwasher-safe, so we eventually went with a different, non-motorized design.
-Current Prototype-
Our current prototype is a fully mechanized version of the motorized cover spoon, with inspiration taken from ice cream scoopers. It had a main handle and a lever handle connected at the base. By squeezing the lever, the rack in the handle would move, spinning a small gear connected to the outer bowl. This action would cause the outer bowl to rotate around the stationary inner bowl, completely covering the user’s food while being brought from their plate to their mouth and preventing any spillage. A small spring was incorporated into the handle to allow the cover to retract when the lever was released.
-AT Fair Poster-
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