A Creative Design
Friday, October 12, 2018
Biomedical Elasticity and Acoustic Measurement (BEAM) Laboratory
In marketing, the product consumers see is the final, pristine result. This is common knowledge, and the amount of time dedicated to creating and editing the design is often times forgotten about or simply ignored when judging the final creation. Psychologically, we felt our initial designs of the ultrasound-EEG helmet should be made to “please” the consumers; in other words, it would contain all the functionalities that are needed by the consumer, while also looking aesthetically pleasing and be comfortable to wear. Realistically, this design process was a rude awakening.
It is difficult, and indeed often impossible, to come up with a design that addresses every single need that the device is intended to address. Thus, when we were coming up with an initial design for a prototype of the helmet, we found that it was not feasible to design around every single need that we initially brainstormed. We quickly realized that the above approach was not a sustainable option, especially this early into our project trajectory. Therefore, we decided to focus our initial design on what we deemed to be one of the most important functionalities of the helmet: its ability to house ultrasound transducers.
A drawing of our design can be seen below. The hallmark of the device is within the three ultrasound transducer boxes, which will house the ultrasound transducers on the helmet. Through the use of both horizontal and vertical sliders, our ingenious design allows for the movement of the transducers along an entire plane on the side of the head. However, while it is clear the functionality is there, it is difficult to pinpoint the specific materials to be used to construct these transducer boxes. Nonetheless, we view this problem not as an obstacle to our planning process, but rather as a first step in improving on our design.
