ENGINEERING DESIGN AND DEVELOPEMENT
What is EDD?
The knowledge and skills students acquire throughout PLTW Engineering come together in Engineering Design and Development as they identify an issue and then research, design, and test a solution, ultimately presenting their solution to a panel of engineers. Students apply the professional skills they have developed to document a design process to standards, completing Engineering Design and Development ready to take on any post-secondary program or career. (www.pltw.org)
Seraphim
Agile ScrumAgile Scrum is the project management system my group and I used throughout the year. The duration of the project is split up into three week segments called sprints. At the beginning of each sprint, we determine what tasks need to be completed by the end of the sprint. We then spend the three weeks completing those tasks. At the end of the sprint, we reflect on what worked, what did not, and plan the next sprint. We use a task board to organize the tasks and help us understand how well we are working.
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Key Roles
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Important Items
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Important Processes
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When using Scrum, our goal was to create a Minimally Viable Product (MVP). This meant we needed to create a product that met the required criteria without becoming excessive. When a solution is over-developed, the team wastes time and resources making a solution that the customer does not need and may not want.
Problem Statement
Medical staff currently have no means of monitoring athlete’s vitals who are performing in collegiate and professional football and are at risk of suffering from heat stress, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke, due to overexertion. As the body’s internal temperature reaches and/or exceeds 37.8 degrees celsius, various complications and injuries are likely to result.
Criteria
During the design process, my group and I developed a list of criteria, based on research and user feedback. Of those, the three that we prioritized for our product were:
- Must measure the athlete's body temperature and heart rate in real time
- Must be durable and safe enough to use in football for 5 seasons
- Must be capable of sending alerts to the sideline from any point on the playing field.
Existing Solutions
Some of the existing solutions on the market right now (shown below, from left to right) include the CorTemp ingestible thermometer, the FitBit exercise watch, the Hexoskin Biometric Shirt, and the Bluetooth wearable thermometer. While each of these fulfill their intended purpose, they are not designed for athletes playing contact sports who are at risk for heat-related illness, as they prioritize small footprints and minimalist construction over durability and accuracy.
Initial Ideas
The first idea was a wearable harness with sensors on the straps, and communication technology on the back. Although it did come with a harness, the system was too bulky and the back was too susceptible to hits.
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The second idea was a helmet oriented device, using the access to the helmet to take temperature, but the presence of impacts made an ear thermometer a danger to the player.
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The third idea was an armband that took pulse and temperature from an artery, but we were unable to draft a lightweight solution with all the technological requirements of our system such as a power source and microcontroller.
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Final Solution
Our final solution is Seraphim. Seraphim has sensors and a microcontroller placed inside existing helmets. The microcontroller uses bluetooth to send the data to a webside accessed by medical staff on the sideline.
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Seraphim is able to actively measure the athlete's heart rate, and temperature as shown in red and blue respectively. The microcontroller, shown in green, transmits the data it receives to the website using a field of signal boosters, outputting results to determine whether or not a player is safe to play or needs to be substituted off the field.
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By embedding the sensors into the helmet's padding, and placing the microcontroller and battery on opposite sides of the helmet in the existing spaces between the pads, we ensure compliance with NCAA and NFL rules, and make sure there will be no direct contact between the Seraphim and other players.
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After the website recieves the data from the microcontroller, it is displayed using colored circles to indicate the player's status (left). When a player's heart rate or temperature becomes dangerously elevated, the website displays a large pop-up warning to notify the medical staff of the player's condition (right).