November 23, 2015

Below is a rough sketch of our new design idea. 

November 19, 2015

Today I visited Tech Shop and completed the Vacuum Former SBU (received a safety and usage packet, but some notes can be found below).  I molded my shoe to closely resemble the type of work we will be doing for our project. The first time, I placed my shoe in sideways and there was no support,  so it folded over on itself. However, the mold of the bottom worked well. The second time, I decided to place the shoe so that the bottom was facing up. We used "hockey pucks" to stabilize the show so that it would not roll over. Because of the flexibility of my shoe, it again deformed after the use of the vacuum, but the hockey pucks cause the toe area of the shoe to be sticking up which is what actually needs to occur for the patients who have drop foot (their toes need to be up). When we actually are designing our brace, we will be using a solid mold, the 3D printed scanned model, so this machine will actually work very well for our design.

Thermo plastic

Scan or mold --> 3D print 

Have the back of leg part come in particular sizes 

Bottom of foot will be more custom 

Different slices of the mold of their foot on one sheet 

- Naomi

November 17, 2015

Today we scheduled our trip to Tech Shop to take a class on vacuum forming this upcoming Thursday.

November 13, 2015

http://www.scheckandsiress.com/documents/afo-plastic-jm.pdf
This site gives a good general description of the basic types of AFO's (Ankle Foot Orthosis) and how they are used.

November 11, 2015

Today we met with our City As Our Campus mentor/expert, Dr. Matt Caster. After this meeting, our design shifted some as we were told what is both feasible and useful. More information on the "City As Our Campus Mentor info" page.

November 10, 2015

Today we designed our CAD model (there are still some issues with it that we were not able to fix) and build our first resolution prototype.

November 3, 2015

Today we visited Union Orthotics and Prosthetics where we took a tour of their facility. Toward the end of the tour, we were able to ask Donny some one-on-one questions about our project and new ideas. This is where we were inspired to create an AFO (Ankle Foot Orthosis) for patients suffering from mobility issues.