Pre-submission presentation

We have just had our pre submission presentation where we had to create 4 sheets explaining our product and come up with an elevator pitch. The 4 sheets included, a poster, technical decisions, business plan and insights.
From the presentation I have learnt that my sheets had to much writing on them for good presentation sheets and that my product needs to be placed into a real life situation to get better feedback. I also learned how to do a good elevator pitch, get the listener interested in the first coupled of seconds so they want to know more.

After my presentation and for final hand in, for this project I need to develop on refining my form of the product and get detail into how the redesigned test strip system will work.

The form

So I know what is going to be in my product, so I need to come up with a form that is discrete but easy to use, I want it to fit nicely into a hand.
An average sized hand is: Length: female- 172, male- 189
                                     Width: female- 74, male-84
I created different sizes of small shapes to see which one fitted into my hand. Dimensions 3 were the best for my hand. Dimensions 2 are going to be the measurements for the actual product.

Shape 4 has slight angles to the sides which I found was easier to hold onto. So a rough 3D model of my first device:

The grip to make it easier to hold when using the lancet.

A GA drawing to see where everything would go.

This form still needs some development into the finer details of the inside and how the light is going to effect the use of the product.

redesigning test strips

Before I get the form of my device I need to know what it needs to work and how it works.
For my business plan, I plan to become partners or take the idea to Accu- Chek or another popular diabetes company, so the Lancet technology will remain the same as theirs. ( the six lancet system). However I am wanting to redesign the test strips and the way in which they are set up and used.
This idea came from a competition device, The strip free Accu-Chek Mobile Blood Glucose Meter System:

The test strips in this device are contained in the silver section and they are rotated around, this can contain up to 50 strips at once. To detach from the device you just pull out the test strip and dispose of it.

To start of with I looked at how test strips work:

My thinking is to make these smaller in length so that the container can hold more and they are easier to place, by the device.

Ways in how this idea would work are still being worked on and the mechanism needed for it.

Prototype.

My final idea is to combine the three main elements of testing equipment and the main feature of this device is to be light.
I got some feedback from Morag,

'The challenges I find in the dark (or in low light e.g. in the car in the morning, in a room which isn't well lit at night, when camping etc) are: getting the right amount of blood onto the test strip and putting the right end of the test strip in to the meter. If the screen light is not on it is also very difficult to see the numbers on the screen etc.'

'However if a meter had some way of lighting up, so there is enough light to see the blood going on to the strip and so the screen is visible then a test could be done quickly without too much effort or inconvenience to others.'

From this feedback I decided to focus on a prototype in which to test the different colours of light which would be best at different times of the day.
The four colours that I tested were blue, green, red and amber.

Amber:

Green:

Blue:

Red:

I found that Amber was the best colour for my eyes at different times of the day.

Chosen Concept

I have chosen my idea of what I am going to do for this project. It is the theme of helping people to test themselves at night. I have contacted Diabetes Scotland again for more information about these problems they face. However my tutorial group said previously that I can't just focus on light my product has to incorporate other parts. So the other insights i am focusing on is, the user friendly interface and a more discrete equipment. I have decided to combine the three testing elements into one, the glucose meter, the lancet and the testing strips.

I wanted to get in contact with the manufacturing companies and I had sent out emails a while back, I heard back from accu-chek and they said they couldn't give out information because it was confidential. So I don't know if I should keep trying or just give up. I am still waiting on replies from other companies.

To investigate a Lancet further I bought a glucose meter kit to take apart the lancet. Before that I tested my blood glucose to see how it was to operate. At first I had difficulty knowing how to work it, I did glance over the instructions so maybe I should have paid more attention to them. I went through a whole tube of Lancets and 5 testing strips until I actually managed to get a result, because I put the lancet tube into the main body and then took it out again and you are not supposed to do that once its in it can't be taken out again. From this I am going to make my product as obvious as possible. I got a blood glucose level of 5.1 which is in the range of normal.

So I took the Lancet and the glucose meter apart which was a challenge in itself I couldn't get into the main body to see what was in there so I sawed my way in and it is actually quite compact design. It was interesting to see how they worked.

The packaging

The test strip

The glucose meter

The lancet

For my product i want to keep the way the lancets are designed the same but change the way the test strips are designed.
I showed my tutorial group the concept and they said as the main focus is on light i would need to test different colours of light at different times of day to see which one is better.

3 Concepts

From the insights the three concepts that I believed would answer the problems were,

(1) A redesign of the insulin pump to make it more discrete and easy to manage, placing it on the wrist for an easy to see and use place.

(2) for people who mix their insulins: a machine which would measure the amount of each insulin needed and mix them itself, most people who mix their insulin either take mixed insulin in the morning at breakfast or at night with dinner.

(3) an idea that focuses on bringing light into the equipment.

When I took these ideas forward to my tutorial group, they believed that either (2) or (3) could be brought forward, they were the most interesting ideas.

To decide which concept to go with I decided to write a survey and post it on diabetic reddit to see what people thought of the insights:

Most of the responses from the questions suggested that mixing your own insulins was an out of date method and Most, almost all of the responses wanted some form of light on their equipment to help them out.

Insights and further desk research

The insights which were gained from the Diabetes Scotland visit where:

Looking at all of the insights, I did some desk research into diabetes and the equipment to see if there was anything already out there that would help.

• Different insulins fit into different pens:

Tried to get into contact with manufacturing companies to enquire why there are so many different insulin pens and only certain insulins fit into them

• Teenagers might like a more technology related product

Connected to their phones, as well as this maybe more discrete object and better aesthetics. 

• Something to fit in with what you are wearing

more discrete for a night out, not as obtrusive. There are already USB sized glucose meters however you still need testing strips and lancet separately

• make existing items more user friendly

This insight is an overall insight which will be applied to the product that is designed anyway. Morag says, 'Glucose meters are a bit clunky', pens and pumps are also a bit heavy to carry around.

• blood testing in the dark

there are glucose meters with lights on them however they are not focused on the lancet and they can be expensive.

• wastage

A lot of material is wasted, like the lancets, packaging, testing strips and devices which help to place the insulin pump into your skin.

• visually impaired and people with dexterity problems

There is already a talking glucose meter, this would be for the older generation. There is not enough equipment out there that helps with their needs.

• something to help mix insulin

People just mix insulin the old fashioned way by pulling out as much of the liquid as need be into a needle then doing the same for the liquid which is getting mixed. this is inaccurate.

• tool to help count carbohydrates

Diabetics have to make sure they know how much carbohydrates that they eat, it is essential when calculating the does of insulin needed.

From these insights I decided to focus on:

• Something to fit in with what you are wearing- referring to the insulin pumps
• Blood testing in the dark
• Something to help mix insulin when needed. 

I chose these insights as i felt they had more of a broader aspect to them and could be developed upon widely. 

Meeting with Diabetes Scotland

For my initial research I got in contact with Diabetes Scotland to see if anyone could sit down and talk to me about Diabetes, as I did not know a lot about what having diabetes involved.
Morag Ramsay was nice enough to get back in contact and arrange a meeting to talk about having diabetes. She has type 1 herself and has had Diabetes since she was a child. So her knowledge of the diabetic equipment and what is involved is large.

We arranged to meet yesterday and the meeting was very useful to gain insights into the equipment used by diabetics and how it could be improved. She started off by showing us how people went about testing their blood, going through the process, step by step

The equipment: The glucose meter, the lancet, the test strips 

Using the lancet to extract blood, testing blood your whole life will make your fingers hard so using different areas of the hand 

Then using the test strip and glucose meter to measure the glucose level of the blood.

She also explained the different insulins and pens that go with them, the different devices which are used to measure blood glucose and gives an insight into how people with diabetes feel and respond to the different devices. 

Morag herself has an insulin pump which monitors the insulin levels in the blood and administers insulin as well. She showed us how she puts the insulin pump into her stomach, showing us this on a harder surface than a stomach.

squeeze sides to inject needle

Press down

and pull off and the tube and sticky part will be left.

This trip to Diabetes Scotland was very useful to gain more information on diabetes and what to look into which might be useful to develop on.

SCOTSMAN 2

The topic of this blog is going to be the project that I was given by Product design engineering course. It is called SCOTSMAN 2 and is based on the briefs made up from the previous project.

In SCOTSMAN 1 we were allocated groups and had to come up with a topic in which we were interested in and was a good cause to develop a product for, with insights into where a product could be developed. We needed to create a brief for the topic which would then be carried on to SCOTSMAN 2.

 SCOTSMAN stands for:
S-solution
C-competition
O-only me
T-timescale
S-size
M-money
A-authority
N-need

This definition was needed to be used to show that the topic which was chosen was viable. Once this had been achieved people chose one of the 8 topics for continuing onto SCOTSMAN 2.

The topics were Fishermen, food shortage, diabetes, flooding in the UK, smoking, drinking, dakar rally and grow your own food. From these topics I chose Diabetes, I felt it was the most interesting topic and one which I could develop a product which would be useful.

From the brief there were 3 different groups in which we could focus on, children, teenagers and the elderly all with their own different issues to do with dealing with diabetes.
The brief also states:
'In summary when redesigning diabetes testing, monitoring and administrating
equipment focus closely on what the specific user requires, how the whole
process can be streamlined, how it can be linked to appropriate data to aid the
experience and how best to integrate with emerging technology to enhance
usability.'

I decided to focus on all 3 different groups to start off with.

To start of my research I got in contact with Morag Ramsay from Diabetes Scotland, to see if I could get a meeting with her and talk to her about the different areas, that she as a diabetic and someone who has personal knowledge of the equipment, would know which needs developed on.