My grand prize-winning experience in the 2015/16 ECE Design Competition

Over the last year I took part in the ECE Design competition. My team, “Fountain of Youth”, won first place (more on that later). The team consisted of myself (Ryan Collins), Gannon Gesiriech, Kevin Nematzadeh, and Boulos Haddad. All of us are electrical engineering students - except Boulos who was our business and marketing expert. Our goal was to design a product which helped mitigate the problems that come with aging. We designed a natural-feeling motor-assisted personal shopping cart that promotes activity and facilitates independent living.

Originally, I was not going to take part in the competition because I was busy with student orgs, a heavy class load, and TA-ing, but once I found out that it would satisfy senior-design credit (thank you, Dr. Nguyen) I could make it work with my schedule.  

As many engineering students know, class alone isn’t sufficient to satisfy craving the we have for technical knowledge.

One of my biggest goals this year was to carry out a technical project from start to finish so that I could talk about it in future job interviews. This project was perfect because it was multidisciplinary, included a business aspect, and had a direct application to a real-world problem.

This project was year-long and consisted of three steps: First was team selection in the fall, then research/data gathering and conceptual design in the winter, and finally the product development and marketing strategy in the spring. We held monthly design reviews where each team has 5 minutes to present to fellow students, and faculty (including the renowned godfather of design Dr. Don Norman). These reviews helped tremendously because it kept us accountable for the progress we made, and we developed invaluable presentation skills.

The design process for our team was pretty straightforward. First we went to senior centers and care facilities to talk to as many people as we could and learn more about the problems associated with aging. One of the interesting observations we made was that people tend to adapt to obstacles and have a hard time realizing their problems. We got around this by talking to caretakers and simply taking note of issues we had witnessed while observing people.

We were able to group the majority of problems into several major categories including mobility, health, safety, and memory. We brainstormed possible solutions and determined that the most reasonable goal was to design something that would solve a problem in mobility. We had several people say that grocery shopping was difficult due to heavy groceries and long distances traveled. This was something we knew we could solve by motorizing a cart and making it as user-friendly as possible.

We started with an already existing foldable shopping cart, and decided to retrofit it with motors and force sensors. The force sensors would read in the user’s force of push, and translate that into a speed that the motors should turn. Easy, right? Well it was easy on paper, until we actually started to build the prototype.

The first month of development was difficult because we could not find parts that fit all our requirements. We had to settle, but we were able to work around all the problems we encountered.

Word of advice: Avoid having to find motors. Finding the right ones is a nightmare.

Eventually, we made enough progress to assemble our prototype. We built a custom motor mount in the ECE makerspace in the basement of EBU 1 (thanks to our advisor Professor Michael Yip for allowing us access). We also attached our force sensors, and wrote control code to read the sensors and output the motors’ speeds.

We encountered many problems along the way, such as broken microcontrollers, mechanical issues, and safety of use. After a few long nights, and an all-nighter the night before the competition, we completed it. Though it did not feel as natural as we hoped, it worked. That was important because it provided a proof of concept and future improvements could always be implemented.

During the competition, many people tested out the prototype, and we had an exceedingly positive response during the demo phase. When it came time to present, we had actually had lots of practice from monthly presentations and we had even competed in several entrepreneurial challenges (which we did not win, but we learned a lot from). Somebody after our presentation said that it reminded them of an Apple presentation, which was quite flattering, but I remain skeptical.

In the end we took first place among some very dedicated teams. Dr. Don Norman said that the reason we placed first was because we showed the most consistent improvement throughout the design cycle from start to finish. We showed that we could set and meet goals, as well as use helpful criticism to improve our product. I also think that our presentation was engaging, and that we greatly benefitted from allowing people to get hands-on with our cart during the demo phase.

The faculty were very accommodating, making the whole process a pleasure from start to finish. We learned valuable lessons about marketing a product, solving a real problem, and the compromises necessary in product design. A big thanks to our mentor and professor Michael Yip, and the ECE Chair Dr. Nguyen for his tireless assistance. Also to Dr. Don Norman for lending his immense design wisdom over the course of the entire project. Lastly thanks to the staff and faculty of the ECE department as well as the Center for Healthy Aging for their help.

By Ryan Collins

UC San Diego Students Fabricate Device to Protect Seniors from a Fall

The AirSave team demonstrated their device during their presentation at the electrical engineering design competition in June

Falls are the leading cause of death from injury among people 65 and older killing more than 400,000 people each year. “This number is projected to increase due to the shift in the baby-boomer population,” said Jun Lu, a recent electrical engineering graduate of the University of California San Diego (BS ’16). “It is a common occurrence, seniors talk about how falling or the fear of falling affects their lives everyday but there is not a widely accepted solution.”

For Lu, that number became real when his great grandmother died after a fall. Together with electrical engineering graduate students Aida Shahi and Borhan Vasli (who are both specializing in machine learning), and Gabriel Frischer, a third year neuroscience major at UC San Diego, Lu created a device to protect seniors from this kind of accident.

The AirSave team took second place at the UC San Diego Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s design competition in June

The device, called the AirSave impact protection system, took second place at the UC San Diego Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering’s design competition in June. The competition was part of the university’s Aging and Innovation Initiative and is the result of a collaboration between the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Stein Institute for Research on Aging. The goal for the projects in the competition was to improve quality of life for senior citizens.

Read more from the San Diego Union Tribune

During their research, they found that fatal falls occur mainly due to an impact of the hip, however impacts to the spine, neck and head are also common and can be catastrophic for the seniors. “We wanted to create something all-encompassing,” said Frischer.

The device includes a set of four air bags (one protecting the neck and cranium and three around the waist for hip protection) and a CO2 cartridge from a paintball gun to inflate them just before hitting the ground.

The students are using the resources in the UC San Diego EnVision Arts and Engineering Maker Studio to fabricate prototypes. “We used the 3D printers to fabricate the airbags and the housing for the electrical components, and other tools like the function generators,” said Lu. “It’s a collaborative space, so we were also able to come up with ideas by talking to other students.”

"The AirSave Team was in the Maker Studio nearly every hour that we were open, and it is no surprise that their hard work and dedication earned them top marks in the competition," said Jesse DeWald, the facility’s director. "I think the best part of the AirSave Team using the EnVision Maker Studio, is that they inspired the other students around them to think about these very important problems and to help them realize that they have the tools and abilities to design the solutions to the problems."

“We learned a lot about the process of designing something,” said Frischer. “The biggest lesson was that we needed to design for the people we were making the device for. Initially, we thought we wanted to create a vest, but after talking to seniors, we decided on an exoskeleton.”

AirSave "exoskeleton" design

The change came about after the students spoke with residents at the La Costa Glen retirement community in Carlsbad and similar facilities.

“Everyone has a different style,” said Frischer. “It became clear that the seniors wanted a device they could wear underneath their clothes and still be comfortable. The frame of the exoskeleton is made of impact-absorbing foam, which adds an addition layer of protection on top of the airbags. Our design is unique, light, completely concealable under the wearers clothing and highly protective.”

The AirSave system includes a sensor that collects acceleration and coordination data and determines whether the person is falling, or just bending over to pick something up.

“We’re still working to improve the algorithm,” said Lu. “It’s pretty good though – the only thing it can’t differentiate is the jumping motion.”

When the AirSave team demonstrated their device during their presentation at the electrical engineering design competition in June, Frischer performed an actual tumble while wearing an accelerometer prototype so that the audience could see the rapid acceleration data from the sensor on the screen.

“The next step is to connect the airbag inflation component to the sensing component, which requires a high voltage battery, said Lu, who plans to work on the project full time next year. “The best part is, this is only the beginning.”

You can learn more about the project and how you can get involved here.

Additional Design Competition Results

In first place was the group that developed the MightyCart, a motorized, foldable shopping cart users steer by pressing sensors on the handle, making it easier to handle heavy loads. Ryan Collins, Gannon Gesiriech, Boulos Haddad and Kevin Nematzadeh — known collectively as Fountain of Youth — took home the $4,000 top prize.

The team that took home third place at the Design Competition was Team VITA, which developed pressure-sensitive carpet tiles embedded with LED lights that light a person’s path in the dark and alert others when someone has fallen. The team members were Chao-yu Lee, Wen Li, Pushen Wang and Edward Zhong.