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Our team’s goal is to create a design to help our kid with Short Gut Syndrome. This child is very active and loves to play however due to his condition he needs to be attached to two pumps for 18 hours a day. Because of his age and size, he is unable to carry his own pumps, and the lines attaching them only give him four feet radius to move around. The main goal of this project is to give this kid more independence.
Our child requires a central line attached to a medical pump for him to retain sustenance throughout the day. All of their pumps and medical supplies are kept in a backpack that is too heavy for him to carry on his own at such a young age. Our immediate solution is to create a way for him to carry this bag around without needing his parents help. Our overall design involves attaching the bag to a contraption with wheels to give him more independence of movement. To further add to this, we would like to give him a harness that attaches to the contraption so that he may move around without having to worry about pulling or pushing it.
Short Gut Syndrome:
The IV bags must stay upright, requiring hooks in the design. The pumps are sensitive to impact, so padding must be brought into consideration. Additionally, when fully loaded the bag can weigh around 15 lbs, so the design must be stable enough to account for the weight.
The concept design under consideration is an aluminum framed box with a rectangular base on four Mechanum wheels that has a tough fabric body with a hard top and bottom. The interior will be padded to reduce any jostling or damage the pumps could receive. The interior will also have hooks so that the backpack can be easily taken out and inserted and have ample space should any toys or items need to be carried as well. To keep the child out of the pump bag, the buggy will have a sectioned-off area that will have a child lock on it. To support outdoor use, the buggy will have outdoor wheels that can handle tougher terrain and be removed easily with the use of cotter pins. The buggy will also have an adjustable handle and a harness that will be comfortable for the child to wear and still provide support. The harness will have a form of spring and flexible yet tough pipe or cable that will keep the buggy from hitting the child when he stops moving.
Pros for Base:
Cons for Base:
Pros for Mechanum Wheels:
Cons for Mechanum Wheels:
The concept design under consideration is an aluminum framed box with a triangle base on three Omni wheels that has a tough fabric body with a hard top and bottom. The interior will be padded to reduce any jostling or damage the pumps could receive. The interior will also have hooks so that the backpack can be easily taken out and inserted and have space should any toys or items need to be carried as well. To support outdoor use, the buggy will have solid rubber outdoor wheels that can handle tougher terrain and be removed easily with the use of cotter pins. The buggy will also have an adjustable handle and a harness that will be comfortable for the child to wear and still provide support. The harness will have a form of spring and flexible yet tough pipe or cable that will keep the buggy from hitting the child when he stops moving.
Pros for Base:
Cons for Base:
Pros for Omni Wheels:
Cons for Omni Wheels:
The concept design under consideration is a five-gallon bucket with 3 casters evenly spaced, bolted through the bottom with a layer of padding on inside of the bucket to protect the backpack and the sensitive calibrated pumps inside from bumps. The bucket will have a child-proof lid so they will not be able to mess with the backpack inside. The cart will be attached with an elastic cord to a harness that is comfortable for the child to wear, while the casters will be modified so that they have a slight resistance to rolling freely. This way the cart will not roll into the child when he stops moving. To support outdoor use, the cart will have a separate detachable base that can be freely attached and removed with a butterfly set screws. With this mechanism, the family can be outside quickly just by dropping the main body into the base and tightening the set screws. The indoor wheels will fit in the gaps of this base and hang down while the bigger outdoor wheels are able to move freely.
Pros for Base:
Cons for Base:
Pros for Caster Wheels:
Cons for Caster Wheels:
We decided to go with our Concept Design 1, but adding the omni wheels on it from our Concept Design 2. The ultimate decision on the wheels came from research on the forces the wheels would undergo, affordability, ease of replacement if broken, durability, and the impact they would have on hardwood floors to carpet. The decision for the body of our design was determined based on the material, ease of motion for our child, and size of the backpack that would be placed in it.
This design consists of several parts:
Axle Attachment- Axle attachment is quite simple here, as most of the equipment is provided with the wheels upon purchase. All that we need to do is make a hole in the frame and pad it with a soft material (likely the canvas the rest of the caddy is made out of) in order to reduce friction and noise.
Corner Hinge- This part is designed to connect the pipes in the two framed sides together at the corner while providing a hinge for the folding mechanism in the middle.
This is a motion gen pro model with the foldable side of our pump caddy. This confirms that we have 1 Degree of Freedom so that the caddy will be able to collapse.
This shows the force required to tip over the base of the pump caddy. The force is applied at the top to simulate the child grabbing onto the base there and pulling outward. This analysis shows that the base is not likely to tip over.
This analysis shows the bending and shear stresses the caddy will experience while statically loaded. The frame will mainly experience a bending moment, since the most of the loads applied will not be directly on the frame. An aluminum frame should have no issue dealing with these stresses.
Fabrication process:
For the fabric:
Testing our completed design was really about ensuring that our child was going to be able to utilize his cart without difficulty and safely. Project members took turns rolling and maneuvering it around a hallway and making sure it moved efficiently and with ease.
Advice for safe use of our cart is to utilize it in the same way you would utilize any wagon or cart. Do not exceed to weight capacity limit and do not use excessive or unnecessary force to manuever it
Overall this project was a successful challenge to complete. It was manageable for all project members to work together and ensure that our goals were met in a timely manner, and that everyone could contribute in any way they could. The design turned out almost exactly how it was envisioned and we hope that our child will be able to utilize this as much as they can, and that it will make them and their families lives just a little bit easier.
