The last week of SEED truly came upon us too quickly. All of a sudden, we were giving final presentations, concluding our documentation, and boxing up our projects to be handed back to Dr. Wettergreen.

The A-Wrist-Ocrats had a very successful week, highlighted by our meeting with James Northcutt, a physical therapist at Shriners Hospital. Since this was our first meeting at the hospital, we went in with a lot of questions and also our final prototype to showcase. Mr. Northcutt helped clarify a lot of our questions and enlightened us on the context in which the device will be used. We then showcase our prototype and demonstrated its use, even having a chance to conduct a comparison test between our device and Mr. Northcutt’s goniometer reading. While we learned that our device succeeded in addressing many of the relevant issues such as ease of use, ease of setup, comfort, and durability, there was still some fine tuning required as far as the actual accuracy of the device was concerned. During testing, there was some give in the wrist attachment, which had to be adjusted for by tightening the clamp. After the adjustment, the reading was fixed and the results matched the goniometer.

      

Our final design can be seen in the images above and we’re very happy with the progress we’ve made this summer. This forearm rotation device is very close to finished and only needs a few improvements. Some areas of future work that we’ve identified include considering opening up the main ring for more adaptability, making it more user friendly for right/left-handedness, and securing the clamping mechanisms in order to ensure quality results.

      

The end of the program also brings with it the goodbyes to all the international students. I’ve had an amazing experience this summer, getting exposure to Malawian and Brazilian culture. Moreover, the friendships I’ve made over the course of seven weeks are bonds that’ll endure for a lifetime. Although it is with a heavy heart that I say farewell to all my fellow interns, I can easily say that we will meet again, sooner or later.