Hi everyone! Week 4 of this internship has been the most packed so far. My team and I have accomplished so much on the road to our final design, and I am excited to share our progress with you all!

After weeks of interviews, planning, and brainstorming, we officially started our low-fidelity prototyping on the various joints. The first joint that we focused on was the knee. The knee is important in two Ballard examinations where the leg is extended until resistance is felt in the knee. This means that the mechanism that we implement in the knee needs to have a modular component to control its resistance. What I found fascinating about the low-fidelity prototyping process is how your expectations can contradict reality. There were so many ideas that I felt worked in my head, but they failed when I had to construct them. We low-fidelity prototyped several ideas, but the one we agreed on as the best one was a string mechanism. Specifically, the mechanism consists of a string threaded through the knee joint. One end of the thread would end with a knot while the other would be wound around a spinning dial. The spinning dial would allow users to adjust the resistance in the knee. The knee would then be screwed into a ball-joint linkage which will represent the hip.

                                                                                                  Hip and Knee Model

Another joint that we focused on was the shoulder. One of the examinations on the Ballard Score requires you to move your arm across the body. Since the shoulder is a pretty complicated joint, we were initially unsure about how we should model it to get the necessary motions. We decided to simulate the shoulder by using a wheel mechanism with a hinge joint on top of it.

                                                                                                       Shoulder Model

Besides the huge leaps that we have made with our project, week 4 has also offered me some great highlights outside of the project. My team decided that it would be great to spend some time with each other outside of the OEDK, so we decided to go to Torchy’s Tacos and get some boba as well! Since most of our conversations during work pertain to our project, it has been pretty difficult to get to know each other very well. It was great just to have the time to talk about things that didn’t have to do with engineering.

                                                                                                         Team Dinner

This week has been one of the most fulfilling weeks of the internship so far! To be honest, it was difficult to really see how this project could be done during the planning stages, but now that we are in the process of bringing our ideas to reality, it has been really great to see how our hard work is paying off!

Talk to you soon!

Lam Nguyen