The National Disability Authority’s Universal Design Grand Challenge (UDGC) is a student competition that promotes and awards excellence in student projects that feature solutions that work for everyone. The UDGC invites third level students in their final two years of study, postgraduate students and recent graduates to enter their best student project.
Each year, nine finalists from third-level institutions around Ireland present their designs to a panel of industry experts as part of the National Final.
This year, we are delighted to announce that Trinity College Dublin School of Engineering Team: TremTrack won, not one but three coveted awards at the event at the Aviva Stadium Dublin on 26th October.
We spoke to the TremTrack team to understand their motivations, the process in developing their project and what’s in store for the team members’ bright futures.
Introducing the TremTrack Team
Mentorship and guidance for the team came from Professor Tríona Lally, Director of the Trinity Centre for Biomedical Engineering. The TremTrack team, is made up of Biomedical Engineering students; Bethany McKittrick, Daniel Diez Clarke, Caoimhe Rogers, Christopher McFadden and Affraic Brophy. We had the chance to speak with them about their achivement.
“We’re a team of 5 bioengineering students in Trinity. For our third year design project, we were tasked with designing a device which would help people with dexterity issues. Before we began the project we weren’t familiar with the concept of universal design, but learnt of its significance through the lectures and workshops in the module, highlighting its importance in the field of engineering and medical device design. At first we were completing the project for the purpose of passing the module, but throughout the term and understanding the impact that Tremtrack could have on people, we became more passionate about the goal and aimed to develop it further.”
TremTrack won in the following three categories :
- Best project in “Products and Services” category
- Enterprise Ireland Award
- People’s Choice award
[image image='/assets/images/news/TremTrack-winners-podium.jpg' title='TremTrack Team Receiving their Awards']
TremTrack’s Goals and Objectives
“Our Product. TremTrack, is a medical device with the intended purpose of aiding in drug titration and management for Parkinson’s Patients. Currently, the gold standard for assessing the severity of a tremor is with a qualitative survey called the MRS-UPDRS. In our opinion, this survey is extremely outdated, as it asks some immensely subjective questions such as “Have people struggled to read your writing recently”. In the current age of constant technological advancements, we believed it was bizarre that the medical device, and Parkinson’s industry had not evolved to obtain some more accurate results.”
“Another of our goals was to provide a daily, at home service. Currently, Parkinson’s patients only get to see their clinician once every 6 months. This means that in this one visit, there is potentially 6 month’s worth of medication being prescribed, due to a clinicians 5-minute observation. We believe that this was vastly sub-optimal, and would be immensely improved if more data was collected, such as on a daily basis.”
The Innovative Solutions and Design Principles that Led to their Success.
“Our innovative solution was based….. on a children’s toy. I'm sure everyone has seen (or played with) the toy where babies stack rings of ascending order on a pole, such as the Fischer Price Rock-a-Stack. Our device has a very similar premise. It involves two tests, one for tremor while moving, the other for tremor while stationary. For our movement test, it is essentially the same as the baby's toy, where we ask patients to pick up small rings, and place them on a pole, and subsequently remove them. There are little sensors in our rings, which will pick up on any tremor received, and feed that information back to us, which we can automatically analyse. Secondly, we ask the patient to place the rings on their fingers, and rest their hand, allowing their natural tremor to take over. Once again, our rings will pick up this tremor, which we will analyse and send to the clinician.”
“This is an innovative solution as there has been no effective quantitative data collected on tremor before, and we believe our product ‘TremTrack’ has the potential to do this.”
[image image='/assets/images/news/tremtrack-device.jpg' title='TremTrack Device']
Why did TremTrack Team Choose this Particular Project and Area of Research
“Initially, the project sort of chose us. We were given the area of a dexterity test to work on for the design, but having done some preliminary research into that area we collectively decided that putting our energy into the area of Parkinson’s disease and tremor testing would be perhaps an even more worthwhile endeavour. We wouldn’t say we started out with a flair for this area, but the more we researched and understood the field, we really did develop a passion for our device and what we could possibly do to improve the monitoring of Parkinson’s disease tremor. We had loads of ideas initially, and some really hi-tech, but the more we thought of our target group, we realised that the simpler the better - and the TremTrack idea really just blossomed from there!”
Tell us a Little about the Work and Dedication that went into the Project
“The dedication to this project and following competition really grew over the course of the semester while we worked on tremtrack. This was mainly down to how investigated each of the group members got with the device. We are a very close knit group and each of us put a lot of hours researching Parkinson's, developing the device design, creating prototypes and ultimately making sure the device actually worked for the purpose intended. The late nights spent in the library, although tiresome, were usually very collaborative and the group members definitely relied on each other for support.”
“When we heard we had been nominated for the competition it just deepened our drive and dedication to the device as we now had the ability to show off the fruits of our labour. Beth and Daniel in particular really spent a lot of time practising the presentation to make it perfect. In the end I think the awards won really reflected the hard work and dedication of the group members. ”
Can you Share a some Insights about your Journey to Success
“We really gained massive insight into the lives of people with Parkinson’s and the struggle they face completing daily tasks. This mainly was due to the fact that our design had to be Parkinson’s friendly. Things able bodied people take as granted such as drinking a cup of tea and dressing ourselves is a real struggle for millions of people with Parkinson’s. Another insight we gained from the NDA awards was just how isolating the world can be for disabled people and when we as engineers are designing devices we should create for everyone not just the majority. Inclusionary design is a key factor in equalling the playing field for vulnerable people in society.”
Tell us about the Support that your Team recieved in Developing your project from Idea to the Awards
“As a team, we were very grateful for the invaluable advice and support from our mentors; Professor Tríona Lally, Luke Guerin, and Celia Hughes. From where we started to the point where we won the awards, there was an immense amount of work, revisions, and redrafts completed, which would not have been possible without the expertise and tips from them.”
“As well as conducting market research ourselves, some of the most valuable information we learnt were insights from occupational therapists, clinicians, carers, and patients that we contacted, verifying if the theory we had applied to our design was applicable and appealing enough to be adopted into real world use.”
Please Share the TremTrack Team’s Future Plans and how these Awards may Shape your Upcoming Projects
“Due to winning the ‘Enterprise Award’ we have been awarded a €15,000 feasibility grant from Enterprise Ireland. We are still deciding whether we will use this funding in the summer to further researching our product.”
“Most of the team will be continuing on the MAI track in Biomedical Engineering, and this project will serve as a vital experience moving forward in terms of how to manage, design and develop a successful project. What we’ve learned throughout the process; in terms of universal design, and critical thinking, will most definitely be extremely useful to us moving forward.”
“Due to this project, our eyes have been opened into the world of universal design, and the importance of it. It is vital that universal and equitable design is approached, not only in engineering projects, but in much broader, real-world applications. We will be actively using and campaigning for universal design in our careers, as a result of this project”
Trinity College Dublin takes immense pride Team TremTrack’s accomplishments. Their success at the UDGC is a testament to the calibre of talent and dedication that defines Trinity’s School of Engineering. We look forward to continued excellence and ground-breaking contributions from our students as they shape the future of Biomedical Engineering. Sincere congratulations to Bethany McKittrick, Daniel Diez Clarke, Caoimhe Rogers, Christopher McFadden and Affraic Brophy for making Trinity College Dublin proud!
To find out more about Universal Design, visit: https://universaldesign.ie/what-is-universal-design/.
To view Team TremTrack’s winning submission, visit here.