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.