Week 1: State of the art, project management and documentation

This week I mainly thought about an idea for the final project.

After Adriana gave us some inspirational topics, I got two ideas I want to research more and go into detail.

My first idea for the final project is to develop a T-Shirt for older people, which live alone in a house or flat. This T-Shirt has a sensor, which has a wireless emergency alarm sensor, which automatically calls the emergency if the person falls on the ground and does not react on a loud sound given by this sensor.

I want to develop a cloth, which is sustainable and alternative to common cloths nowadays. For this I want to try, to use either algae or food waste like peels of oranges. For this, I just have to do more research in materia development and substance properties.

The afore-named sensor shall be integrated into the T-Shirt with a little pocket, so it can be removed for wash cycles and be put into another T-Shirt.

Another reason for this is that these people do not see this auxiliary agent the whole day and are not remembered that they need help in some cases.

My second idea is to develop eating utensils for people with restriction of finger and hand motion ( because of diseases like gout) or with weak muscles in their hands.

As material for this eating utensils, I want to research how you can recycle PET bottles or other synthetic material that you can use to establish these utensils.

The idea behind this project is, that I want to sustain the autonomy of these people, so that they do not give up their self-confidence and do believe in theirselves because of things they are able to do by their own.

They do not have to think that they are helpless because they can not hold “normal” eating utensils anymore. They just do not have the right ones for them and this is something I want to change.

I want to develop a concept that these utensils can be adjusted to any patient and their hand position.

Furthermore, I want to develop something like a loop, which can be attached to the eating utensils, which in my opinion is good for the people with muscle weakness.

I want to give these people a kind of happiness because they realize that they are able to do more with their disabilities than they thought before.