Purple Team!
Assembly!
Presentation Video
Firehose Cleaner
This device will efficiently clean, dry, and otherwise prep a firehose for safe storage in the station.
Product Contract
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Storyboard
CAD Images
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Contributors
Will Reinkensmeyer: (user integration subteam) User interviews and key takeaways
Liv Parsons: (user integration subteam) User interviews in western mass, product contract
John Malloy: (user integration subteam) User interviews, storyboard, and product contract review
Michael Lu: (user integration subteam) User interviews, user storyboard, presenter
Shayna Ahteck: (user integration subteam) Worked on storyboard and user interviews with providence-based firefighters
Cameron Kokesh: (user integration subteam) User interviews in rural areas
Emma Rutherford: (system architecture subteam) CAD, presenter
Jack Lin: (system architecture subteam) CAD, system architect diagram
Paige Forester: (system architecture subteam) CAD
Emily Scherer: (system architecture subteam) CAD, presenter
Michael Burgess: (system architecture subteam) CAD, system diagram
Jason Salmon: (system architecture subteam) CAD/research
Morgan Mayborne: (new technology subteam) Motorization/filtering research
Marcelo Garcia: (new technology subteam) General system sensing research, presenter
Tess Engst-Mansilla: (new technology subteam) Drying system research
Spencer Yandrofski: (new technology subteam) Drying system research
JROD Rodriguez: (new technology subteam) Washing/scrubbing research
Reviewer Feedback
Georgia Van de Zande
Feedback
- Do you need sensors? Can Franky tell himself if the hose is clean enough? Maybe he would crank slower if he saw it were still dark. You answered this when I asked. Its smart to have your own sensors for testing, but yes, let the users and stakeholders (maybe an oncologist who works with firefighters, or EHS-type person) tell you if they need that feedback or if they can tell the cleanliness themselves. - When you said that firefighters would do anything to reduce their cancer risk, that’s something youll want to say up front. It’s a lot more compelling than just saying they are 9% more likely to develop cancer. It speaks to actually adopting your product, and it doesn’t open you up to the question someone asked about are dirty hoses the main cause of their cancer
Keith Clavin
Feedback
Very unique product and market niche. This is a problem that most probably never consider. I think the mechanism will generally work, although I 'd like to hear more about the varied sized of hoses and how the weights may be different after use--I assume the retain some water and maybe are more or less stiff at different points. Also, the topic of carcinogens needs to be explained better. How do we know the risk comes from the houses as opposed to the fires themselves? I don't have an answer, but if that is the foundation of the motivation for the product, it should be described more and more clearly. In terms of the mechanism, how long would it take for an average hose to be cleaned and how would the material that is cleaned from the house be disposed of, especially if it is potentially dangerous?
Nate Phipps
Feedback
TLDR; Overall, good work, dont let up on the gas with user interviews and defining the use scenario/features/product contract. Really great that you are talking to lots of fire depts. keep that up. It seems like different depts. would prefer different feature sets so keep talking to more folks to start to find concensus or patterns, in who your target depts. might be. Exact use case and feature set is still a bit unclear, motorized or not, drying or not, in the field or in the firehouse. One thing stood out to me, how realistic is it that firefighers use this as they are cleaning up from a fire? Maybe firefighters clean up meticulously before returning to the station but my guess is it might happen quickly as exemplified in the current solution of pickup truck full of hoses. It is an ideal scenario in order to prevent dirt/carinogen coming back to the station, but is it realistic? Whats the process then to prevent the carcinogenic debris from hanging around the firehouse and in the back of the pickup. Also, cranking 100 newtons for 10 minutes per house sounds pretty tiring, at what force/time do you decide to go with a motorized device? What is the fastest you think you could do? Focusing on cancer/health is a great angle. I would have like a couple more facts about carinogens being absored through skin contact and/or something about the high potential toxicity of fire debris to really convince me of the connection.
Kamala Grasso
Feedback
Your product contract is very focusd on the time to wash and dry the hose. Your quote is specifically about drying but it seems that is not really a big part of your system now. In the presentation, you focused more on the benefit of getting the hose clean and removing carcinogens, rather than reducing the time to do that. Is the big win the time or the cleanliness? And how would you actually measure the level of carcinogens you can remove? If you set it as a spec in your contract, you should be able to measure it to demonstrate the efficacy of your system. You referenced potentially using a reduction of the risk of cancer as a selling point - I would be careful of the way you say that. Yes, you may reduce their exposre to carcinogens from the hose but that doesn't mean you reduce their risk of getting cancer. How much water would you need for a typical hose? Given that this wastewater will have detergent and carcinogens in it, I doubt you could just dispose of it as the site, even with a carbon filter.
Sam Ihns
Feedback
I'm glad you mentioned that the sensors are mainly for testing purposes and may not be a part of the "final" product. This type of project lends itself well to clever, purely-mechanical solutions. Now that you are focusing in on a mobile solution for hoses on the scene, the biggest question appears to be the actual cleaning processes. I don't have much doubt that you can make a truck-mounted/trailer-hitch mounted/carryable form factor for your final design, but finding a way to robustly clean may be a bit trickier. What sorts of filters are currently used for filtering carcinogens? Perhaps doing some product breakdowns of catalytic converters, stone-cutting tools, etc. can help show some existing methods you can rip. You also mentioned carbon filters, for this it will be important to determine replacement times. Having a subteam return to the drawing board for a few days to really dig into cleaning methods will be helpful - don't give in to the sunk cost fallacy! In terms of student-days put into this concept so far (a new unit I just thought of) - you have spent 364 student-days looking into this product. You have 728 remaining before final presentation! There is still some time to explore, but it must be done quickly and with agile subteams. Regarding your force required to operate the mechanism, a firm 100N force may not be the best metric, as the actual biomechanics of the operation will change how much force a user is able to exert (ie. if this is truck mounted and at waist level a user can exert more force into the crank than if it is on the ground and they have to bend over). I'm excited to see this concept blossom in the next few weeks into a fully functional demo!
Liz Stevens
Feedback
Have you looked into the medical literature to see where the increased cancer risk is coming from for firefighters? Is it from touching wet ash? Is it from touching or "breathing" water vapor that contains soap or some anti-fire chemical? (I don't know much about this at all, but I can picture the contents of a fire extinguisher, which seem pretty noxious.) Is it primarily from inhaling fumes of burnt houses/plastics/furniture/cars/etc.? If smoke inhalation is the main cause of carcinogen exposure for firemen (I'm not saying it *is*, but rather posing the question), then would this device still cut down on cancer risk? It would be good to do a little research in Pubmed to see what is the best hypothesis for why firefighters get cancer more often than the general population. If the problem is inhaled particulates, a clean hose wouldn't seem to significantly reduce exposure. So what is the proposed mechanism for how carcinogens get in the body? Lungs or skin? Will a clean hose cut down on inhaled particles?