Week 6 Update

 This week the team started off strong with a great brainstorming session for the first design iteration and coming up with items that need to be analyzed through shakedown testing. A lot of our efforts were also put towards the mid semester presentation and constructing a rough budget for three tiers of design complexity. 

Fig 1. The items we are deciding to shakedown test are ace wraps, resistance bands, a stepper motor, a weight belt and/or tactical belt, and crutches. The ace wraps (thigh and potentially calf) are prospects for how to comfortably fasten the exoskeleton and mechanical components to the patient's legs. The resistance bands are an idea for adding resistance to the leg to help the lower half of the leg's motion if there are only active hip motors. The weight or tactical belts are potential solutions for providing lower back support to the patient during rehabilitation and to also hold mechanical components. The crutches are one concept for having adjustable components that would work for patients of different heights.

Fig 2. A bit difficult to decipher from the picture quality, however, above are rough drawings of different design ideas the team was considering. On the left bottom are ideas of how to attach the mechanical components to a weight belt without them moving around too much; a possible solution is a tactical belt that has many slots. In the middle are drawings of the resistance bands being used in the passive knee design. 

Fig 3. In this photo the team was brainstorming different ways to attach the mechanical components to the lower limb segments. One solution was the use of ace wraps that provide support and padding to the patient, but would need additional material to attach externally to the exoskeleton. Another strategy is to have a support bar behind the leg to help distribute the torque of the motors to the limb itself and not turn on the patient. 

We created our budget based off of prices relevant to McMaster and Amazon, as well as other sites giving us a basic understanding of different price ranges for product we needed to buy.

This upcoming week we plan on ordering the materials for shakedown testing and finishing up our first design iteration before manufacturing begins in the upcoming weeks.