Cameron Dumas

Design Studio

December 14, 2017

Reflection

At the beginning of the year, we met the kids at the mcmains center that were diagnosed with cerebral palsy. When diagnosed you may not have the ability to throw and catch a ball with their friends, peers, and family. To fix that we decided to design a ball throwing/catapult device that will allow them to have the same feeling as if they were throwing it themselves.

On the first day we began to brainstorm what our ball device might look like and what we can use to make it. We brainstormed and came up with a device that will sort of looks like ladder golf. We thought this was the best solution so far because it is the best way for the ball to be thrown at a soft and slow rate. After we started constructing two types of prototypes in two different styles. The first was our ball throwing device to mimic ladder golf. The second was a more complex device that throws it much farther. It consist of a spring and a latch that you can adjust to throw farther and slower which was inspired by a pitching machine. We drifted away from our first prototype and decided to go with the one similar to a pitching machine. Our next steps was to begin making it out of cardboard and coming up with solutions that would make it more stable and functional. Next we planned on using on a second iteration out of cardboard using our rhino skills cut from the laser cutter. We accomplished a lot up to this point and through testing believed that the rubber band and stretch band work the best for the prototype. Mrs. Estremera gave us some tip on how to add the hinge and the elastic strap to make the arm function properly. When the McMains visitor came we discussed our current prototype and talked about how it can be used by kids with the ability to pull a lever or press a button. There are similar devices like the available to the public, but they are harder to use. We are very excited to see the final outcome of our project. The name we came up with to present to McMains is “Geaux Throw”. We went with this name because it was a catchy and fun way to describe our contraption without saying what it does in the name. From McMain’s received some helpful feedback and were able to implement it into our project. We decided that if we used a two gear and ratchet system to have the student attach to the wheelchair it would assist in allowing children of all abilities to interact with our device.  We also began to draw and think about what materials we could use for our final project. We came up with a handle that they use to throw to dogs balls. It is easier to hold the ball or whatever we are using to throw. Tomorrow we will CAD and create our ideas on gear generator and auto inventor to finalize our ideas and almost be ready complete our final build. We decided to use a motor to function the ball thrower instead of doing a manual system. It will still be able to be functioned by the student but it will be a button in the base and a button on top for kids with walkers. We got the motor to work with a stable and strong spring so that the ball can be launched far and work properly.

After testing our final production, wiring, and constructing our ball thrower, we realized how much hard work, sweat, iterations, and prototypes go into this process. We appreciate companies that do things like this a lot more because a lot it takes a lot of time and money to get a final product. We also can’t wait to see the kids faces when we give them our projects and have fun with them. It was a long but fun process and we love how it turned out.