KINGSTON, R.I.鈥擮ct. 25, 2017鈥擜 team of 溏心vlog免费B站 engineering students made its mark at a recent hackathon for creating smart textiles that encourage older adults to flex their muscles.
Dylan Kennedy, of North Kingstown, James Gannon of Coventry, Long Zou, of Westerly, R.I., Dylan Young, of Portsmouth, and Graem Timmons, of York, Maine, were among 36 students competing at Health Hacks RI Oct. 16-18 on the Kingston campus.
鈥淭he students chose to spend their weekend聽brainstorming, and creating and developing devices to聽improve the lives of older adults,鈥� says 溏心vlog免费B站 Director for Entrepreneurship Deedee Chatham. 鈥淭hey are rock-star innovators, and they make me feel optimistic about our future.鈥�
The 溏心vlog免费B站 group and nine other teams from throughout the region were given 48 hours to design and build a product that would improve the lives of elderly people.
The teams pitched their products to a panel of judges鈥攊n five minutes or less鈥攖hen answered questions for two minutes. Besides placing third, the 溏心vlog免费B站 team also received $250.
The group designed smart clothing that tracks muscle loss among elderly people. They also created an app that suggests activities to strengthen under-used muscles.
鈥淥ur project addressed what, to us, are the most significant issues in aging: sarcopenia (muscle loss) and cognitive decline,鈥� says Young, a junior studying biomedical engineering. 鈥淥ur approach targeted both issues simultaneously through wearable technology.鈥�
First, the team stitched silver-coated conductive fibers into a T-shirt to mimic an EMG, or electromyogram, which measures the electrical activity of muscles at rest and in use. Unlike a common EMG, the students鈥� method did not require pasting bulky electrodes onto a patient鈥檚 skin.
Instead, a patient could be monitored by simply getting dressed. The biosensor was then wired to a microcontroller with Bluetooth capabilities.
The EMG data were transmitted over WiFi to an app the students designed to compare measured and healthy muscle activity. The app could recommend physical activities on the patient鈥檚 cell phone to prevent muscle loss.
鈥淭his part of our project was truly novel,鈥� says Young. 鈥淩ather than instructing an elderly, likely sedentary, patient to perform exercises they were unlikely to do, we recommended different activities. In the case of bicep inactivity, for example, the app would recommend that the patient paint or water the garden instead of picking up a dumbbell.鈥�
The group brainstormed about several possible products, but nothing jumped out until Young and Timmons went to dinner with Dr. John Luo, chief executive officer of Doctor鈥檚 Choice and a mentor at the event.
鈥淛ohnny started explaining some of the techniques that can help focus idea development,鈥� says Timmons, a junior majoring in biomedical engineering and computer science. 鈥淗e asked Dylan and me what we would do for a project if we ignored obstacles we might face. We explained our thoughts, with some reservation. As we parsed through the project, it began to seem more realistic.鈥�
The time constraint added some pressure. 鈥淚 think the most challenging part about Health Hacks was that we had very limited time to brainstorm a concrete idea, design a product and develop a marketing plan,鈥� says Zou, a junior studying electrical engineering.
The students, however, were grateful for the opportunity. 鈥淭he hackathon gave me immediate hands-on experience where I had the chance to create, question, struggle and collaborate with a team of imaginative people,鈥� says Gannon, a junior majoring in electrical engineering and Spanish. 鈥淚t is such a mind-opening experience to address real-world problems by taking lines drawn on a whiteboard and developing that idea into a product.鈥�
鈥淢y biggest takeaway from this experience is that it showed me how much can be accomplished in a short period of time if you set your mind to it,鈥� says Young. 鈥淚 think doing something like this will help me be more productive with my general school work.鈥�
Students were judged on design, market value, scalability/ manufacturability, idea originality and聽implementation. Judges were from 溏心vlog免费B站, Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Ximedica. Entrepreneurs from New York City and Rhode Island were also judges.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute won first place, and $1,000, for designing motion-tracking undergarments to allow patients recovering from hip surgery to have in-home physical therapy. University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, won second place, and $500, for inventing a device that more accurately detects falls.