DMT Project Logbook

Thursday, 08 October 2015

Logbook OPEN. Our group decided to do an e-logbook and I suggested that my blog would be the best platform for it. I’ll be the scribe for most of our meetings, so that’s a convenient way for us to document all that we’re doing over the course of the year. The logbook will take the form of a singular post, with any pictures we take and sketches we make uploaded here.

Our group was formed pretty early on, sometime towards the end of the last academic year: Keith, Yi Ming, Jones and myself. We are housemates – that facilitates easy discussion. We take a wide range of modules so that will be helpful to the project.

The DMT project list is out and we’re in the living room throwing around possible options and discussing them, and wondering which are the most viable to tackle together. Hopefully we can come to a decision and start seeing supervisors soon to settle the topic and start driving the project forward.

 

Friday, 09 October 2015

Today we shortlisted a few projects after some deliberation:

1. PROPEL (A wheelchair for Andrew Mullen)
2. MOBILE 3D PRINTER (as the name suggests)
3. EV2 FRONT END (Designing an impact attenuator and front wing for the EV2 car)

And we think these projects will be in high demand, but they play to our strengths. So we aren’t very worried. We are significantly more interested in the Wheelchair project than our 2nd and 3rd choices, so we’ll do some work prior to meeting Mr. Andrew Brand (who’s supervising that project).

 

Monday, 12 October 2015

Dropped Mr. Brand an email to fix up an appointment slot. Also we started some simple sketches to generate some ideas about how to go about tackling the project. We’ve also typed up a short proposal including our proposed method and our motivation regarding the project:

• Motivation
  • The group wanted a project where we could see engineering at work: benefiting the world starting with the individual. It’s very easy to forget the end-user when embarking on ventures. In this project, this is very targeted at a single Paralympian; every action and decision has a tangible outcome for Andrew Mullen.
  • The group’s strengths lie in solid mechanics and design, which made this project a solid choice. The problem was also well defined, broad enough to allow us to be creative but narrow enough to concentrate our efforts in finding a feasible solution.

• Method
  • Research on Andrew Mullen’s physiology
  • Explore current wheelchairs available on the market, make comparisons to Andrew Mullen’s current wheelchair (using his stronger leg to power it)
  • Determine which current wheelchair available allows us to modify it in the most efficient and neat manner, with minimal intrusion
  • To minimize impact on any fatigue he might experience, we have to create a design which would mimic him walking (or other equivalent action using his hands/legs), so his energy can be channeled to training and swimming
  • Making the prototype from an existing wheelchair and modifying it, adding a physically powered drive train to satisfy Andrew Mullen’s requirements
  • Testing it either with Andrew Mullen himself if possible, or ourselves, with the same constraints that Andrew Mullen has

The sketches  are below (drawn by Keith, I’ve inserted them just for illustration, since I sorted this document to make our case to Mr. Andrew Brand) – the simple idea is that we want Andrew Mullen to replicate his current motion with his fully functional leg – he propels himself by pushing off the floor. So we hope to allow him to do what he is already doing, but extend the idea to include his other leg. Together the turning of this treadmill-like structure will drive the wheelchair forward. Since Andrew Mullen does not want a motorised wheelchair, we’ll have to channel his energy the best we can in this way. The treadmills can be extended so he can sit fully in his wheelchair and comfortably move forward. Also, the side sticks are for him to steer using his arms. A simple idea that may work, but we believe it still has room for development.

 

Thursday, 15 October 2015

Mr. Brand (sounds formal, but the person for whom we are designing the wheelchair is also named Andrew, so we’re a bit tied up on this matter) replied us the day before (Wednesday, 14 October) arranging to meet us today. We were quite excited yet apprehensive to meet him. Just before we went in, we heard there were two other groups also going in at the same time (that is, they wanted the same project as us). When we went in, though, we were the only group. So we figured the other groups might have found an interest in something else (hopefully)!

Also, Mr. Brand presented us with new constraints like having to fold the wheelchair, and describing the amount of mobility Andrew Mullen has. Also, supposedly the physiotherapists have even more constraints – but they know Andrew Mullen better than any of us will, so eventually we will have to tailor the design to their specifications. The ability to fold the wheelchair means our rear wheel axle cannot stretch the length of the wheelchair – or we have to find some way to shorten it (e.g. telescopic poles?)

We were quite excited after the meeting and hope we get the project so we don’t have to worry about the other two. Submitted the project bidding form immediately after the meeting and we’ll be putting this aside for the time being until the project groups are released sometime next week hopefully (also a good break!)

 

Thursday, 22 October 2015

Woke up this morning to good news – we managed to get the Wheelchair project with Mr. Brand! Delighted and excited to start work. Will spend these couple of days settling the admin and then we can kick-start work soon. We plan to sort the project before final exams in May so we have less to worry about. But it’s time to schedule meetings and do up our plan report.

 

Monday, 26 October 2015

Today my group met with Andrew Brand but I was stuck in Sheffield settling some issues with my student visa, but got up to speed at night with the others in the group – first of all, we have a new group member Omer! This is good because it means we don’t have to work at 125% capacity each. Mr Brand also helped us to make contact with Ian Radcliffe, our associate supervisor, to discuss access to the Sports Innovation Challenge (SIC) space in 13 Princes Gardens. Dr Radcliffe will also be our associate supervisor for the project. We will arrange a meeting with him in the coming weeks.

 

Thursday, 29 October 2015

Today we were alerted to the fact that this is not a group logbook – and so from this day on this is going to be an individual logbook. I’m the secretary so my logbook may be used for reference anyway with regards to meetings and updates on issues. I suspect my logbook will really look like a very wordy blog, and I don’t mind that since it is my job anyway. I also take care of knowledge management – all the way from knowing our client and his needs, keeping up with progress of the project and handling emails when the thread involves the whole group (which happens 99% of the time!) I am also going to be anchoring the 3 reports and I’ve already built a skeleton of the Plan Report, and typed up the bits that don’t require any group think. We’ll work on the PDS together and Omer will anchor the Gantt Chart. Andrew Brand emphasised that it should be 50% a plan of action and 50% how we govern ourselves as a group.

In other news, Dr. Radcliffe has got our details for access to 13 Princes Gardens, but the tidy-up of the area is still in progress. Also, a request was sent in on our behalf to Andrew Mullen to obtain his schedule and wheelchair specifications. His wheelchair model is known, so if he cannot provide these details, we can always drop the company a line too.

We presented our milestone timeline to Andrew Brand as well, and he just warned us of the phenomenon of the ‘stretch’ of the initial parts of the timeline. However, I foresee this happening already due to the massive protocol for communications and difficulty in interacting with our client directly…we will be waiting on Ian Radcliffe to make an initial introduction of us (we thought it’d be cool to call ourselves PROPEL 2.0) before we make direct contact with Andrew Mullen…if that actually happens. Supposedly Andrew Mullen doesn’t know about PROPEL 2.0 yet, and I hope he does soon!

Andrew Brand will also get us the CAD model soon to make our lives a little easier when it’s time to get down to CAD modelling.

Andrew Brand reminded us about the fact that Andrew Brand has a lot of dexterity with his toes and whatever our design is, that we shouldn’t affect this negatively – bottom line: he should be able to use the wheelchair barefoot. Also he refuses to use any other model of wheelchair, so we’ll have to work around his wheelchair. Fair enough, tried and tested. No cuts, bruises, blisters, abrasions should arise from using it. We will consider approaching Marc Masen to consult him on skin friction and the dynamics involved in this respect.

Well, PROPEL 1.0 (last year’s group) managed to prove the principles of their design which is kind of the first stage. The second stage is the retrofitting of the system onto Andrew Mullen’s wheelchair. We can’t use the one he uses on a daily basis because he needs to use it obviously. The model of wheelchair Andrew Mullen is using is around £1500-£2000, so that would probably blow our budget. We are exploring the idea of a sponsorship from the wheelchair company, so we can focus on the notion of the wheelchair being bespoke. Or even a secondhand wheelchair.

Some of the principles that Andrew Brand suggested the wheelchair should be designed for were:

• Different terrains
• Ramps
• Body position constraints

Andrew Brand wrapped up by saying that we should read the student handbook and last year’s report.

 

Thursday, 5 November 2015

Today we were supposed to meet Andrew Brand but he had another appointment so we cancelled the meeting with him. Good news – we have churned out a solid first draft Plan Report and sent it to him in lieu of the meeting. Getting the feedback on it would be fair replacement for a meeting.

 

Thursday, 12 November 2015

Met Andrew Brand via Skype today as he wasn’t in school. Most of us were for other lessons so we did the call together and we got live feedback about our Plan Report and worked on it on-the-spot. We also spent a couple of hours touching it up and proofreading it afterwards.

Besides the Plan Report (in fairness, it’s due tomorrow so it was the only thing really on our minds), we also have access to the google drive that last year’s group used. It’s available at bit.ly/DMTPropel1415.

We also raised the concern that we haven’t heard from Dr. Ian Radcliffe since we asked for access to 13 Prince’s Gardens, so we brought this up with Mr Brand as well, who suggested I try dropping him a line to fix up a meeting date. We got that sorted quite quickly since I was working live, and we fixed an appointment with him tomorrow. Unfortunately I’ll be out of town, so the rest of the group will meet him. I will be sending the report in and doing the final touches from Manchester.

 

Friday, 13 November 2015

Submitted plan report in good time today (around 11am), along with a confirmation of the additional SIC funding, meaning we’ll have £2000 at our disposal. Last year’s group used less than £900, so we’ll see if we can make our money work for us.

The meeting, I heard, didn’t go that great. I understand from the rest of the group that it’s just a room about the size of a small living room and it’s quite packed, but we have access to it whenever we want. It’s not completely ‘tidy’ but Ian said he’ll clean it up.

In less desirable news, I also heard that he basically killed our ideas that we were working on the last 3-4 weeks in 5 seconds. The rationale seems fair enough – Rio 2016 is coming in less than a year and we hope to have PROPEL 2.0 ready for Andrew Mullen by then. So Ian Radcliffe doesn’t want to go through the time and trouble of the whole approval process. So we basically have to work on PROPEL 1.0’s idea – keep the pumping motion (basically as if using your leg to operate a ball pump – but instead this translates to locomotion in the case of PROPEL).

There are two options in this regard – one is to modify PROPEL 1.0’s product, but I understand it’s in a pretty rubbish state. The other option is to propose how the pumping action connects to the drive of the wheelchair. We’ll have a think about it over this week before meeting Ian next Monday to take the discussion further.

Ian says that ‘there is more than enough work in this project’ already so we shouldn’t ‘create unnecessary work’ for ourselves.

 

Thursday, 19 November 2015

Meeting #4 (for me) and #5 for the rest with Andrew Brand today. We’ll be receiving Plan Report feedback next Thursday.

Cleared up some matters pertaining to the design concepts – freewheeling and reversing should not be a mechanism issue (i.e. we don’t have to find a way to use the pumping action to allow the wheelchair to disengage/ engage reverse gear, instead we have to make it a possibility, and these intricate manoeuvres be done manually the way Andrew Mullen currently moves his wheelchair). We also explored the idea of get going first before pumping – much like giving the e-scooters from ME2’s Design & Manufacture Project a rolling start by kicking off the ground. This is factored in the same way as the freewheeling and reversing considerations mentioned above.

In this regard we should also consider exploring the user profile/ duty cycle – that is, to find a optimum whereby the mechanism achieves significant mechanical advantage and Andrew Mullen also feels like he is putting in effort to move between places.

We also discussed the braking/steering mechanism of the current wheelchair. Ian Radcliffe likes it but we take issue with the fact that skid steering means making a u-turn at low speeds, or trying to turn on the spot, would prove difficult. Andrew Brand encouraged a systems perspective thinking though, and the fact of the matter is that the mechanism works, but there’s not harm in exploring other steering systems.

We actually suggested an alternative steering system involving the front wheels – Jones had done some research and found YouTube videos documenting wheelchairs which have achieved this (just one front wheel turning in fact). Andrew is concerned that there may be understeer on the front wheels especially at higher speeds (we’re looking at 3m/s average speed – that’s about 10.8km, medium running pace). We may design a quick prototype to test this front wheel steering system idea. We also have to consider how to collapse it, and how much castor effect the front wheel of Andrew Mullen’s prototype currently has.

The discussion moved on to the transmission mechanism and gear ratios – last year they used a gear ratio of 1:1, but we’re looking at a Shimano Alfine SG S505 Internal Gear Hub to change this to a varying gear ratio with a maximum of 1:1.6. Coupled with the stepping up of the gears before that with a 1:2 ratio, the effective ratio should be 1:3.2 at maximum and 1:1 at minimum. Later in the day we also talked about the possibility of going for an 11-speed internal gear hub instead. We are also exploring using a Dura-Ace Di2 electronic transmission system.

Regarding transmission systems – we threw out some pros and cons of each system. The main fear of using sprockets and a chain (as in a bicycle, very compatible with the idea of using the Shimano gear hub and Di2), is that the oil will slowly wash off in the wet because of the nature of Andrew Mullen’s sport. The pool area being greasy is not great – so is a belt and pulleys the answer? We have to consider slip, and maybe the added bulk of having an idler pulley as well. And using a belt means it’ll be extremely difficult to disengage the transmission (coasting not possible).

We also discussed having a ‘kick-away’ so that Andrew Mullen can get going (up to speed) before he starts the pumping action. My conception of this is like the kick-start on a bike, folded up when not in use. This gets the pump-pedal out of the way for Andrew to have space in front of him to ‘skateboard-style’ his way around. Also, a further idea was to integrate the gear engagement/disengagement system into this, killing two birds with one stone.

We intend to have 2 bevel gears to translate the pumping action to locomotion and that was praised as a good idea – quite a compact system. We’ll be working on that, since bevel gears have a tendency to not like to stay together. We need to find a way to constrain them adequately. We also have concerns of integrating the Shimano with the bevel gears.

Andrew Brand wants us to come up with a simple prototype or even just pictures using cardboard to show the pumping motion design to one of his friends who is a world-renowned ergonomic expert and can advise us on how to achieve our design concept while retaining good posture. Andrew also re-mooted the idea of electrical assist. I’m personally not keen on even mentioning that again because I think Ian has enough to handle without us bugging him about asking Andrew Mullen about this again. If he’s adamant against anything e-related then we’ll avoid it (except the electronic shift because that’s more or less essential).

Finally, we’re looking for an early start (December) to kick-off the progress report which should run in tandem with CAD modelling (not my forte to be honest, I’ll find a few easy parts to work on and leave the complicated stuff to the stronger ones).

 

Monday, 23 November 2015

Meeting #1 (for me) and #2 for the rest with Ian Radcliffe.

We basically talked about the same thing as we did with Andrew Brand last Thursday – so I’m going to find a way to streamline the meetings. For the group’s sake.

Today when we proposed the turning mechanism (using the front wheels) to Ian he brought up a very good point – the back wheels may experience scuffing. We later stared at a whiteboard for a long while to figure out to what degree this would be a problem with the wheelchair going at like 12km/h – and we think it’s negligible. We’ll try and do a quick prototype out to see how this goes. The failsafe is just using the current steering system: as Ian has said, there is enough work already without us trying to create more work for ourselves.

I like to think I made a radical suggestion today:

Instead of stepping down on the pump like a car pedal, I suggested stepping on the pump as if it were a foot pump (as in the kind used to pump airbeds and footballs and bike tyres). I thought this makes a lot more sense ergonomically because stepping on car pedals requires the ankle to act as a pivot, whereas in this case the pivot can be at the hip and the whole leg moves, which hopefully takes the strain off the ankle, but furthermore, with a spring mechanism in the pump – this will be a lot more comfortable to operate.

How feasible to manufacture? No idea. We’ll sort it out. We have been trying to crunch out numbers to see if there is (if any) mechanical advantage by using the pump mechanism this way. If you look closely you can see a joint within the pump mechanism and we were toying with where exactly to position this joint and at what angle – because this will be the part that is actually connected to the drive system. We should figure this out in due course.

We’ll leave it as that for today and await feedback on our Plan Report this Thursday. Then I may kick off Progress Report soon. Trying to squeeze everything into Spring Term so Easter isn’t spent fretting about DMT and exams can take priority.

Another thing we were chatting about was the power consumption of the electronic shift. The DI is powered by 2-3 AA batteries (have to double-check this) and for 6h of use a day Keith calculated that a set should last about a month – so that’s changing batteries 12 times a year.

I suggested using rechargeable batteries and a dynamo to solve this problem – I think there’ll be minimal weight but i fear it may take up critical space we may need on the underside of the wheelchair.

Ian also told us to spread out our suppliers (have minimum 2 for each component) – this is done to I presume ensure we have backups should anything fail.

 

Thursday, 26 November 2015

Meeting #5 (for me) and #6 for the rest with Andrew Brand today. Received Plan Report Feedback – we got a B which I was not impressed with, since I’m in charge of the reports for the group. Not proud of it at all. Feedback was that more should have been written regarding the thought process behind developing our plan of action and the methods/means by which we choose to do things. Difficult with the stipulated page limit. Will try to do it better in the progress report. Luckily the groupmates didn’t say much about it. They thought it was quite good so we were a little confused.

 

Tuesday, 1 December 2015

Before we get busy with other submissions (LRP etc.) we decided to try and make a final attempt to get Andrew Mullen’s wheelchair model so that we can purchase the exact one – that way we won’t disrupt his training plans by taking his, and won’t potentially make a mess of things, though we don’t plan to. We initially had some difficulty but Dr Ian Radcliffe found a photo of Andrew Mullen at a TeamGB event and determined that it was a Sunrise Xenon2 SA wheelchair that he was using.

I googled the image out of curiosity (as to why we were not more resourceful than Ian Radcliffe) and found it on Andrew Mullen’s twitter from September. Now following his twitter (he tweets at the handle @andy_mullen1). Who knows, it may come in useful soon.

 

Wednesday, 16 December 2015

Was supposed to meet both Andrew Brand and Ian Radcliffe yesterday, but things did not work out, so we arranged for a meeting today, but again there are other matters they have to see to. Hence, we will only be meeting them next term. We are in the midst of talking to Sunrise – now we are asking for some sort of sponsorship. We are slightly behind time – preliminary CAD work has begun but we want to finish a CAD model and have a manufacturing plan by Spring term.

 

Saturday, 30 January 2016

We have been busy with submissions and examinations so we haven’t been focussing on exams yet – but the good news is that Sunrise has offered to give us a massive discount on the wheelchair (50% off, coming to just under £1100) since we are doing it for a good cause. Also, we have navigated the difficult waters of the procurement process and have the wheelchair on order. It is expected to arrive in about three weeks from now.

Drew up a template for the progress report today – no real substance in it yet, but I have about a week to put together a proper first draft for Andrew Brand and for the team.

 

Wednesday, 3 February 2016

A document came in outlining what exactly needs to go in the progress report and the page/word limits too. This is good since it sets the parameters in place for me. Spent the day working on it and compiling all the information we have to date. We have been banging heads together about the designs and have 3 more or less firmed up ideas. Each successive one was built upon the previous, and seems (using our engineering sense before we crunch numbers) much more solid than the very first design we had in late November. Still haven’t really come up with a novel way of steering, but if all else fails we think it’s wise to fall back on the method that PROPEL 1.0 used.

The three images are here – brainstorming is a bit less of a thing now, we’re just trying to sort this because it is February and our Gantt chart is basically moot (which reminds me – I have to update it later for the progress report). We’re going with the rack and pinion design probably. We started with the crankshaftesque design, then moved to the peach design (cam follower) then now we’re at the third iteration (this is ordered left to right in the image below – CAD kindly done by Keith)

 

Friday, 5 February 2016

Been working on the progress report. Taking shape now – difficult to work within the limits, but so be it. Trying to get everyone to do their little bit as well. Omer has chicken pox so I let him settle the QFD to put in the report. Everyone has a pretty specialised role now – Keith and Yi Ming are working on the CAD, and Jones did a little CAD and a lot of number crunching. I’ve been checking the numbers and bouncing them back off Jones. We’ve been struggling with a few figures concerning the mechanical advantage provided by the gear ratio – not sure what’s wrong but we’ll probably bang heads a bit more next week.

Keith and I also banged heads about the final design (rack+pinion). In the picture above (from Wednesday 3/2’s post) you can see just make out the springs at the top of the pedal’s guidebars. This picture was inserted only after, hence is updated! There’s a clearer one here:

After like 1 and a half hours of thrashing it out we decided this is the best way to go about disengaging the rack from the pinion to allow the wheelchair to freewheel hence it can be pushed by Andrew Mullen (or anyone else) rather than driven. The image above doesn’t reflect the end of the rack properly – there should be a few teeth milled off to allow this to happen! We also worked out that the pedal will collapse downwards when not needed.

 

Monday, 8 February 2016

Met Andrew Brand today – Ian Radcliffe couldn’t make it so he’s trying to get in on the next one. We scheduled one for Friday to receive feedback on the progress report (which I’ve just sent Andrew Brand) before submission on Monday (15/2). Hopefully this report will be better than the last round.

Didn’t really have time to discuss the report, but we presented these designs to Andrew Brand. Andrew Brand encouraged us to also think about the macro perspective of things and we also should have a sit and think about how we ensure we’re not repeating PROPEL 1.0’s problems/how we overcame them, especially the ergonomics one, else the project is rendered useless.

Side note: I realised my logbook sounds like a blog since it’s written in this fashion but that’s fine since I’m the secretary anyway so that kills two birds – my logbook can be used as a dated reference for meetings and progress, and also kind of doubles up as meeting minutes (which are scribbled by me on my tablet initially).

Andrew Brand encouraged us to show how we have considered the human factors (comfort for Andrew Mullen) too. Going beyond that – our design is also a bit dodgy with regards to health + safety, so we will probably be trying to sort out some sort of cover to minimise contact between the transmission system and the end-user or his clothes. An update in the PDS should reflect this risk of entrapment (because there is much less risk of getting anything else stuck in there than clothes).

Also we were hoping to work on optimisation but instead Andrew Brand asked us to try and think of simplification instead. We probably will try – if it doesn’t blow our budget, which was the other matter of the day. We’re running really low on funds after the wheelchair blew more than half of it. Hoping we can get our hands on more. Word on the block is that some group just purchased a torquemeter for £6000 – and they don’t even have Sports Innovation Challenge money. I don’t see why we can’t get an extra £500 if this is the case.

Also, Andrew Brand asked if we can do a hi-fidelity prototype to prove our mechanism works – truth is, we can’t. We have no money to. We’re taking a risk here but we have quite a bit of faith in our design. We’ll take that leap. The next meeting is scheduled on 12 Feb to chat about progress report and more about the wheelchair, though the wheelchair is coming on 18th (updated delivery date!!) February, so CAD for the wheelchair will need to be sorted really quickly after.

 

Friday, 12 February 2016

The team met with Andrew Brand today but I had other commitments in the morning, so I caught up with them afterwards. Basically feedback was to try and squeeze a lot more into the report. Will be spending time sorting, formatting and compiling it over the weekend.

 

Saturday, 13 February 2016

Spent most of the day cleaning up the report, getting sketches and CAD screenshots from various team-members and input for basically every part of the report. I think we have a great deal of material which can actually go into the final report. The final report, in fact, feels like it will be an update on whether we succeeded or not, and why this was so!

 

Sunday, 14 February 2016

The evening was dedicated to trying to fit everything into the page and word limits – and still over! Tomorrow morning I’ll clean it up before I submit it. Also references and all the labeling for images and tables.

 

Monday, 15 February 2016

Woke up early to submit the report – faced some problems but got it through nonetheless. Quite pleased with the work, and will probably get started on the final report very early this time – if possible. I intended to start on progress report in mid-December, but exams and submissions got in the way till mid- to late-January. Have a series of coursework submissions in the coming 6 weeks, but it should not be a problem since this term is less busy in terms of other things.

Also, I’m learning some interesting things in System Design and Optimisation, and will see if I can apply it to DMT.

 

Monday, 22 February 2016

Took delivery of the wheelchair today, and I was tasked to bring it back home. Since most people in the group are at home and can work on measurements and subsequent CAD modelling for it from there. Also realised that most of my System Design and Optimisation course material are more applicable for the design process – and SDP is a spring-term only course, so it’s a shame we can’t really employ it to our benefit. We will press on with CAD.

 

Thursday, 25 February 2016

Spent a good part of the day working on CAD. I don’t think these are amazing, merely functional, but considering my CAD abilities, it’s a feat – but will get those better at CAD to help me out to edit the bits which are a bit wonky.

 

Friday, 26 February 2016

Started on the skeleton of the final report today hopefully that’ll get things going for that soon. Going to be super busy with coursework and the lot in the coming weeks, but I’ve already overcome the starting inertia.

 

Sunday, 28 February 2016

Looked for foldable pedals today. Also looked for pedals without little studs on them so they’re nice and comfortable for Andrew Mullen. The two are unfortunately mutually exclusive as far as I have reached within the realms of the world wide web. I found a nice set. These are the best we’ve found with a strap: http://www.bricklanebikes.co.uk/ynot-pedal-straps-black and it’s £40 per set for the straps and £25 for the pedal – meaning over £100 for the pedals. We’ll have to sort it out.

Also sent out an email to Chris Harris of Gates Carbon Drives to try and secure some subsidy for parts from them.

 

Thursday, 3 March 2016

I think my groupmates think I’m quite good at the email thing – got a reply from Chris yesterday and just followed up on that, and also shot an email out to RS to get some sponsorship from them too. The gears are in motion – we are closer to being able to build our wheelchair.

 

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Received the sprockets today – will be sending out an email shortly thanking Mr Harris for his help. Will probably have to go down to Brick Lane to buy the bicycle pedals in a few days as well.

Final report is on hold while I churn out two pieces of coursework.

 

Friday, 11 March 2016

Collected our order from ME Stores today.

 

Thursday, 17 March 2016

Went down to Brick Lane Bikes to pick up a set of pedals and straps for the wheelchair. To save cost we have gotten pedals with many little extrusions on them (I’ll provide a photo soon). So we probably need to find an alternative interface (like a shoe insole that has been cut to fit the pedal, and somehow mounted on, or we need to file off the extrusions. I think the former is a better idea, but will try the filing on the other pedal anyway. The pedals cost GBP40.

 

Friday, 18 March 2016

The pedal filing is successful. Got some lubricant for the parts which are having some fitting trouble – that will be sorted by the teammates. The team met Andrew Brand for the first time in a long while and showed him our progress. Many parts arrived this morning from the institution helping to manufacture them. Assembly began today and there have been some photos taken for me to include in our final report.

 

Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Met Andrew Brand for a final chat as we finish up the ‘make’ portion of the project and move into the ‘test’ segment – we are hoping to succeed, but we aren’t expected to achieve 100% success. Also just drew up and chatted about a plan regarding the final report and other submissions required. I already have drawn up the skeleton of the report and hope  to sort things out fast after exams end. Will be taking a break from DMT until then! Andrew Brand has also asked us about possible use of the PROPEL 1.0 wheelchair by another group, so once we are done with our prototyping we will sort that out for him.

 

Thursday, 7 April 2016

Took a break from studying today to settle some parts for the wheelchair with Gates (sprocket sponsor), looks like we may need a custom belt or make other arrangements with Gates.

Also, took delivery of a package today that contains a part – I’m leaving it for when the main people in charge of design return, but supposedly the VAT was not paid so that has been settled (GBP20).

Chris replied quickly to suggest a 158T belt and different sprockets – I’ve run this by the group and they have all said it is okay. I will be shipping the initial sprockets back to Chris soon.

 

Thursday, 14 April 2016

Shipped the parts via express delivery (GBP80) to Chris Harris today, and also received the new parts. We won’t be looking at it much until after exams – hopefully they’re alright.

 

Monday, 16 May 2016

Exams are over so it’s back to work on DMT. Today we figured that we received the wrong sprockets – we require a 4-bolt front sprocket instead of a 5-bolt one as he sent. I didn’t check the parts when I first received them – I left them to a side while doing revision. Maybe if we had checked them prior this would have let us settle the parts earlier (and it wouldn’t be difficult to do even amidst exams since it isn’t labour intensive).

 

 

Thursday, 19 May 2016

Filled up some of the draft report, which I formatted according to the requirements as in the DMT handbook. The group is still working on assembly and testing (slightly behind on our Gantt chart, but we had little choice, the delays piled up from February).

 

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

The requirements for the final report are finally out and decisive; I’ve left it to Yi Ming (the creative lead) to work on formatting and the rest of the group to insert all the technically-heavy material into the report. Omer has also done a solid literature review, which has relevance to Andrew Mullen unlike the research from PROPEL 1.0.

 

Saturday, 28 May 2016

A rough first draft is out – I woke up early so I spent the morning editing it for grammar and clarity of expression.

Then I spent the afternoon working on the bibliography – basically trying to convert

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/ 09593980151143228#aHR0cDovL3d3dy50YW5kZm9ubGluZS5jb20vZG9pL3BkZi8 xMC4xMDgwLzA5NTkzOTgwMTUxMTQzMjI4QEBAMA==

to

8. Pynt, J., Higgs, J., Mackey, M., A classification and treatment protocol for low back disorders Part 3 – Functional restoration for intervertebral disc related disorders. Physical Therapy Reviews 2012, 17:1, doi: 10.1080/09593980151143228, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/ 09593980151143228#aHR0cDovL3d3dy50YW5kZm9ubGluZS5jb20vZG9pL3BkZi8 xMC4xMDgwLzA5NTkzOTgwMTUxMTQzMjI4QEBAMA==

multiple times over. Painfully slow process but I managed to sort it before dinner, but it isn’t done because some material isn’t in yet. Also, we’ve been trying to figure out what’s the best way of sorting out the bibliography. If you manage to find my LRP on this blog, then the style is the same – just endnotes in the form of bibliography

On a side note – I’m quite pleased I decided to do an e-logbook. It is so much more efficient because all my work is on the computer. I hardly did any writing – if so it was on my tablet which I then transcribed onto here.

 

Monday, 30 May 2016

Spent more time editing the report, working the whole day with Yi Ming to ensure the creative aspect is achieved. Spent hours sorting the formatting of the headers & footers and cover page – worth the effort since we can afford it.

 

Tuesday, 31 May 2016

The group is largely split into 2 now, with Keith and Jones in the workshop and the other 3 of us working on the report. 2 days to deadline. The workshop people had an emergency today because they couldn’t turn down the steel shaft, so I rushed up to Northampton and back again to grab an aluminium shaft. Spent like 4.5h driving and managed to come back in time to meet Andrew Brand for the last time. Then, we spent a couple of hours doing a part of the final testing, and took photos and recorded the test results. Continued to format and add in material and labelling for pictures. It’s actually really hard to compile.and make everything look sweet, but we’re on the way.

 

Wednesday, 1 June 2016

Slept late and woke up early to start work today. Put in loads of stuff into the appendix and also inserting lots of photos into the testing sections. Also sorted the coversheets for the reports so there’s one less thing to worry about on Thursday. Compiled in edits from both Omer and Yi Ming. Worked on the abstract and filling in the last few blanks in the report. Editing is more difficult than I imagined it to be – probably because of the volume.

At night (after posting this entry) I will work on all the nitty-gritties: the figure and table numbers, the page numbers, binding suitability and cleaning up the bibliography. Also going to do a round of proofreading to check for language and clarity of expression. Probably a late night and early morning to print and bind and submit tomorrow.