Media Day 5.22.19

Media Day

Date: 5.22.19
Location: Logan HS
Time: 9:20-9:40 AM

We hosted a media day at Logan HS to demonstrate our Energy Management System for a Prosthetic Limb invention and practice our presentation for EurekaFest. Attendance was very good and we had a number of sponsors, parents, business partners and politicians that show up along with three TV Channels and one radio channel.

We started off by doing the 10 min presentation that we will be doing at EurekaFest. We had it timed down to around 9 min. and we were right on. We then opened up for questions from the audience afterwards. We did not have many questions which probably meant we either did a great job of explaining the problem and our solution, or people were just hesitant to ask questions. We think people we just more hesitant in a larger group to ask questions.

We then broke into small groups (hardware, software, sustainability, finance, etc...) where people could walk around and ask questions in a smaller more comfortable setting and interact with the team. We received a lot of positive feedback on the invention and some suggestions for improving our presentation.

Mr. Bob Loper from Hanger Clinic was in attendance which we were happy to see as Mr. Loper is a Certified Prosthetist and this would be the first time he had seen our design. Hanger Clinic had donated a lot of equipment for us to test with and use. He was very impressed and was pleased with the solution we came up with.

After about 45 min. we wrapped things up and thanked people for attending. Interviews with the media went on for another 30 minutes.

Overall it was nice to put closure on this part for our team and community members. We are looking forward to EurekaFest and are beginning to change focus to trip packing and preparation.

Thank you Lemelson-MIT Program for giving us this opportunity!

Logan InvenTeam presenting.

Nice audience in attendance.

Austin being interviewed and showing off the cell phone interface he created.

Work Day 5.15.19

Work Day

Date: 5.15.19
Location: Logan HS
Time: Morning about 3 hours
Students: Austin and Paige
Goal: Create and adhere stickers to simulator to promote the team and the Lemelson-MIT program.

Just some detail work that needed to be done on the tester. Paige and Austin made stickers for the tester to "dress" it up a little bit. This was the first time they had done this so using the vinyl cutter, weeding, and taping the stickers was a learning experience and they had fun doing it. A welcome change of pace from soldering or working with oscopes and multimeters to test faults.

Paige and Austin getting stickers ready.

Austin starting to adhere the sticker.

Stickers on and the simulator with a green screen for photo editing.

Austin putting on a sticker.

Work Night 5.9.19

Work Night

Date: 5.9.19
Location: Logan HS
Time: 5:15-7:15 PM
Goal: Change over generators on the heel strike simulator (limb tester) and work on EurkaFest PP.
Students: Paige, Caitlin, Tanner, Seth, Thomas and Alex.

The work night and week leading up to it was mostly positive steps for the team as we progress toward EurekaFest.

We finally finished the essential testing of different generator outputs and have come to the conclusion that the 18 V generators (as a reminder we are using stock DC coreless motors as our generators) give us the highest output for current and efficiency. The new 12 V motors have a stronger gearhead that will withstand the torque placed on them from the tester better, but the output is lower than we anticipated. These were the new motors we ordered from India which looked very promising specification wise on paper, but did not test as well as the 18 V motors. The only way we could find out if they would work well was to test them.

We also wanted to try to switch the 8-1 gearheads to the 18 V generators but they would not swap out as the pinion gear inside was not the same size and had a different gear pitch. So we are going with the lighter duty 8-1 gearhead. We have changed over our heel strike simulator to demonstration mode now which will not load the limb as much and should be easier on the gearing. It is much quieter running now as the knee joint does not lock out. We still can demonstrate outputs using an oscope.

During this process we tested out a variety of spring combinations to determine if different spring strength would make a large impact on our outputs. We came to the conclusion that is does make a difference but the size spring (9 kg / 20 lbs) we are currently using gives us the best output without stressing the components.

We spent some time cleaning up connections on the tester and making things look better. Alex is finishing up a LED display that will light up when certain voltages are run into it. This will give our audience a visual other than just saying we are now charging a 1000 mAh battery.

We are working on the our presentation and Paige is organizing who will speak on each slide. Caitlin provided some more information on sustainability and we found out more information on recycling motors that we did not know about. The rotor in a motor is very valuable as far as recycling is concerned.

Seth and Tanner worked on the conceptual design for the next generation generator system. They are working with a local mechanical engineer on it. Tanner also updated our finances.

Austin has the software program in order and just needs to document it for patent purposes.

Next week is final exams for our seniors so work time will be cut back to allow them time to prepare. We will still spend some time getting ready for our May 22nd media day.

Austin and Paige getting the tester ready for painting.

Tape added to protect the electronics of the tester.

Primer coat is going on in our finish room at Logan.

Almost done.

Paint job finished.

The numbers on the springs indicate how many pounds each spring is.

Paige doing wire management on the tester.

Seth and Tanner working on next generation design.

Alex working on a LED display for the a visual representation of our electrical output.

Chart on peak generator Volts to how many pounds of force the spring is.

Work Night 5.2.19

Work Night
Date: 5.2.19
Location: Logan HS
Time: 5:15-7:30 PM
Students: Paige, Caitlin, Austin, Tanner, Seth, Thomas and Alex.
Goal: Continue to test to see which motor configuration gives us the most efficient output and test our new Bluetooth module.

We spent some time on Wed. morning working on the tester and mounting our new smaller Bluetooth module so we did not have to do it tonight. The new module is much smaller than the original one Austin designed which used an Arduino Uno. We are not using an Arduino Nano which gives us the same functionality and is 75% smaller which helps us with the over all scale of the electronics. Austin did a nice job designing and programming this.

During the work night we had to first troubleshoot a generator problem as one generator was not operating properly. Our output was confusing which led us to figuring out it was incorrectly wired into a terminal block. We relabeled the terminals so that would not occur again. Part of the problem with all the testing we are doing is nothing is permanent yet. This meaning we are moving components around in testing to see which ones give the the most efficient charging combination. Once we have that combination down, we can permanently label and connect the components.

We started testing with the 12 V generators under load. The idea is to run up the charging circuit while under load, see how it performs and collect data as we do that. Right now it appears the 18 V generators give us the best output although we still want to try one 12 V generator with a 18 V generator. The method is the same for each set of generators we test and an oscilloscope is a key to measuring that output. Alex, Thomas and Austin worked on this.

Paige also spent some time working on the EurekaFest Powerpoint. Seth and Tanner worked on our next generation harvesting system conceptual drawing. This is just a concept on how we could improve the mechanical design. We will not have time to fabricate it, but is could be a next step.

The highlight of the night was testing the new Bluetooth module. This would be the first time we installed it in the charging system. It had been bench tested to simulate functionality but you never know what will happen until you install it in the system. We started the heel strike simulator and within 13 seconds the Bluetooth module had enough electricity to kick on and start showing voltage readings! This was faster than expected. We also got some baseline data on how long we can maintain the reading and how much the Bluetooth mod drains from the capacitor storage. We have it programmed to sample a voltage and go into sleep mode so it does not continue to drain electrical storage. Caitlin worked more on the App interface to clean it up and make it look presentable.

Next week we start to paint the tester and do more work on the Provisional Patent.

Picture of the top of the Bluetooth module

Picture of back of Bluetooth module.

The Bluetooth module is now attached in the bottom right corner of the mounting plate.

Paige working on the EurkaFest Powerpoint.

Caitlin working on the App interface design.

Alex wiring in the Bluetooth module. Not much room to terminate connections.

App interface draft that Caitlin is working on.