Red Team!
Assembly!
Presentation Video
Assistive Gripper
Handheld gripper for users with difficulty bending down and limited grip strength/dexterity
Product Contract
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Storyboard
CAD Images
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Contributors
Tolu: presentation slides, user research, mount CAD, product contract
Kwame: design team (prototype improvement), gripper mechanism design & CAD, presentation slides
Christian: design team (push to release), housing CAD
Logan: design team (prototype improvement), locking mechanism design & CAD
Gaby: design team (push to release),
Trevor: design team (push to release), jaws & pins
Megan: user interviews, quantifying user measurements
Carly: qualitative user measurements, user research
Aquila: contacting centers, user research
Gui: user interviews, user research
Susan: product contract, user interviews
Christina: user team, contacting centers
Chad: design team (prototype improvement), force analysis & integration
Jack: design team (push to release)
Nico: design team (push to release), initial plunger design, animation
Diane: design team (miscellaneous improvements)
Matt: user story board
Reviewer Feedback
Aditya Ghodgaonkar
Feedback
How do we prevent gripper from breaking or damaging things like spectacles? I see a potential issue where someone leans on the end-effector as if it were a cane. Would the reaction of the person's weight 'de-actuate' or limit the utility? How does the cam-lock mechanism actually link to end-effector? How do we detach an object from the adhesive/magnets?
Georgia Van de Zande
Feedback
- For user persona, 65-year-olds aren’t usually using walkers. (many of the 2.009 staff are in their 60s, and they are very mobile). >85 is probably a better age target for your user persona - Do you have a plan for how it will be stored on a walker? Is that a feature you will design? - How do things not get caught in your mechanism? In general, it seems like you have some exposed fragile components that could get stuck on something like the spring or rubber that could get caught on something and break. - The magnet could get stuck on something that the user doesn’t want to pick up. Anything you can do about this?
Rich Wiesman
Feedback
You've done some good new work. Now, you might want to take a look at the many commercial grippers already in this space and carefully define exactly what your product will be doing. That is, where do you want your product to fit in the market. Will it pick up things that other grippers can't handle? Heavier things? Lighter and more delicate things (like single sheets of paper or eyeglasses.) You are developing something with big grippers that can handle a larger object (although the user's strength may be the limitation) and also pick up a single dropped sheet of paper. I asked you about the eyeglasses because you need to be familiar with how easily eyeglasses can be damaged if you want to pick them up. Just pressing the adhesive to make a good contact may also bend the glasses. Adding contact with other hard parts of the gripper may scratch the lenses. You describe picking up a piece of paper, but is a single piece of paper really the main need for this product? I get lots of mail and things like business envelopes with 20 to 30 page reports inside are common for me and also commonly dropped in my home. Can the device pickup 30 or 40 sheets of paper in an envelope? That's a flat object that isn't thick enough to capture easily with the grippers and still weighs a significant amount if you depend on adhesive. Think about testing the ability of the user to align your product at the right angles to use the grippers or the adhesive pads. Is this a reasonable task for someone with dexterity issues? You may need to speak with an occupational therapist about this sort of thing. If you need help locating one let me know. I think it will take some additional research to decide where your product fits, and from this decision, decide what sort of realistic objects need to be considered in the product use case and specification. For the adhesive part of your product, think about testing it in households with pets and the associated pet hair. Will the adhesive pull off print or stain anything?
Charlotte Folinus
Feedback
User persona and product contract: Is your target demographic really 65? This seems on the younger side. When speaking about and designing for “the elderly”, it’s good to acknowledge your own biases (which can come through in how we design products or how we talk about “problems”) and the heterogeneity of user needs — not all “old people” will have the same needs, and acknolwedging this complexity can be useful in communicating your product. Think about specific use cases — glasses, phones, nonuniform objects. Can you pick these nonuniform objects up? The adhesion longevity target (30 cycles) seems low (lasts between a day and a week?), and I’d encourage you to think about how the adhesive behaves with dust, when wet, or with things like hair. You describe the “pick up force” of your gripper, by which I think you mean the max. payload of both modes — “payload” or “load capacity” could be more clear, as pick up force could also mean the amount of force the user must apply. Failure modes: what happens if an object is delicate — will it get crushed, scratched, dented? what happens if the gripper cannot grasp — will it grasp and then drop later, never successfully pick up? Communication: I liked how you gave us a recap of what your mockup was. Pictures of each mode could have been helpful, but re-centering us verbally was very helpful! Design: As you continue refining and think more about the actuation/release mechanisms, I encourage you to not only think about force (you mentioned this as a primary consideration). What’s easy to learn to use? Could it make sense to have multiple actuation mechanisms, either for users with different preferences or with context-dependent preferences? What are your “compliant” elements, and how are they being attached? From the CAD, it looked like a piece of fabric/cord. The gripper itself seemed to be a multi-body, rigid mechanism. Would a more compliant material (and simpler/more flexible design) facilitate the same motions with fewer joints/parts?
Juergen Schoenstein
Feedback
Right off the bat, you need to have a clearer understanding of your user. As you mentioned in your own presentation, this is still unclear. Age (as foregrounded in your slides) is NOT a disability - especially not when you describe your target age group as "over 65": I am a few months shy of that age range, and no, your Gripper would not do anything for me (yet)! The user should be defined by specific needs/mobility issues - but then, you need to be consistent: Would someone with these mobility issues (lack of grip strength, lack of range of motion) be able to operate your Assistive Gripper as you intended? Only extensive user testing WITH PEOPLE IN YOUR USER GROUP will give you the necessary feedback - don't scout for one or two people that may like your idea, but really explore with as many potential users as possible. One challenge that came up in the Q&A was the fact that your Assistive Gripper works primarily in the downward direction, to pick up items from the floor - but the need to grip things is not limited to this singular downward use case, and when the Gripper fails to help picking items laterally or upward from shelves at the Supermarket (for example), it would probably not be worth carrying it everywhere, as you intend. Another, more specific concern that I saw was with the geometry of your design: The Claws seem to be extended when not in use - which, when attached to a walker or wheelchair, makes them at least prone to breaking off when hitting corners or walls, and at worst a tripping hazard for the user. You might have to rethink this geometry. I also did not understand how this device would be improved by "telescoping" the pole - it is just not clear how you could have the vertical stability to use downward pressure AND make the pole collapsible at the same time. Just make sure that you do not settle for the technical solution that you have developed so far - those are great steps toward a useful design, but they will have to evolve; you are still quite a way from making this the product you claim it should be.
James Penn
Feedback
You've done a good job with developing your gripper mechanism so far, but I worry that it is an over-complicated and tricky-to-get-right solution to the second half of your stated goal: "to pick up a variety of objects from the ground with ease." As an alternative to your gripper, have you considered something as simple as a broom and dustpan? I believe that such a combo would have a much easier and more reliable time picking up the variety of objects you have in mind than your currently proposed solution. Of course, it would need to be adapted to achieve the first half of your stated goal: "that enables those with limited mobility", but the key idea would be simply to get underneath the objects (e.g. with the dustpan---no need to grip them as a human would) before picking them up. My apologies if this is a dumb idea for some reason that I'm currently missing :)
Jordan Tappa
Feedback
For this iteration, I wonder if you're attempting to put too much onto one end of this device. If the form factor is this large pole, having one end with the push down sticky gripper arms for large objects and the other end for smaller magnetic object (small hook or scoop). It would be very much worth taking a small step back and considering how people would use/carry this around in their day to day lives. Wrist straps and walker attachments are decent afterthoughts, but I implore you to walk around all day with a 3ft stick strapped to your arm. Consider more who your actual users are, 65+ years old conceptually seems like a decent hand wavy age range for mobility issues - but ends up disrespecting some of our dear lab instructors. If your user has A) Mobility and Dexterity issue and B) already walks around with a walker or similar, then will they even want a extra large stick dangling from their walker. Consider integrating this into a walking stick/cane where the gripper mechanism is deployable (and hidden when not in use), or perhaps a collapsable pole for easier storage in a bag. If your user does not have this on their person when they need it, how much effort will it take them to find your gripper, get it, and then use it on their dropped object. Its seems right now that your efforts have been mostly how to pick up arbitrary objects with a gripper rather than how to help your user pick up the objects that they would regularly drop and want to pick back up right away.
Liz Stevens
Feedback
This seems like an elegant solution for people with limited hand strength to use gravity and large, compound muscle movement to pick up items. It's almost like the opposite of those grabbers in arcades that disappoint children because they can't grab even the lightest toy. Keep doing user interviews to ensure that your product usability evolves with your design. What are the most common objects that people need to pick up with grabbers? Does it work with narrow pens? Single sheets of paper? A dropped stack of 25 sheets of paper? A bulky phone? A laptop? Keys? A coffee mug? A travel mug? A big value of your product might be that it is more effective for certain items than the traditional grabber.