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Product Design graduate, Will Drake, from the University of the West of England has been shortlisted for the national UK heat of the James Dyson Award.
Will has designed a hand massage machine aimed at helping to improve the quality of life for people who suffer from arthritis.
The design brief was quite simply to ‘design something that solves a problem.’ Will’s hand massager was his final year graduation project, which earned him a first class honours degree from UWE earlier this year. He conducted research at the Bath Royal Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases where he met with health practitioners and patients to help inform his design.
Will says he’s really excited to reach the shortlist stage in such a hard fought competition.
“My hand massage device utilizes airbags and infra red heat to soothe aches and pains. The unit mimics the Paraffin wax bath treatment used in hospitals that inspired this idea, and adds a massage element to the treatment, that also aids movement.
“Creating compression and massage are both beneficial for arthritis. The air is pumped into a manifold; each chamber has a solenoid valve and pressure sensor which are controlled by code which opens each one in a desired order to create the massage effect. The unit also utilizes an infrared heat pad to give deep
penetrative heat into the joints to aid movement.
“When researching the project I found that most disabled products are ugly, stigmatizing and very undesirable products. So I decided that I wanted to target both of these problems and make getting up in the
New research will improve hip and knee implants
morning a more enjoyable experience and making the product I designed desirable, a product the user was not ashamed to have in their home and one they looked forward to using.
To find out more about the product design programmes at UWE see
www.uwe.ac.uk/
Project BERTI, (biomedical implant with exceptional resistance to tribo-bio-corrosion and with inherent antimicrobial properties) is expected to lead to new designs of knee and hip implants and substantially reduce the number of costly revision surgeries faced by patients undergoing hip and knee replacements; 163,940 primary hip and knee replacement procedures were carried out in England and Wales alone in 2010. Partners in the project include Corin Plc, Tecvac Ltd, Imperial College, University of London, Charing Cross Hospitals, Queen Mary College, University of London and the University of Sheffield. The project, valued at £1.1m over three years is co-funded with £577,000 by the government-backed Technology Strategy Board.
Revision surgery is especially costly, reaching maybe £25,000 or more for each patient. It often requires a lengthy stay in hospital and may affect one in 75 or more of primary procedures in the following three years.
www.biomedicalsurfaces.com 33
UWE graduate shortlisted for Dyson Design prize
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