WHAT’S HAPPENING
Course cohort
designs violin
bow adapter
A team of 25 schoolleavers
and graduates from
around the world has created a musical
aid for seven-year-old Francesca
Hughes, to help her realise her dream
of learning to play the violin at her new
primary school this September. The
work was one of four trial modules for a
new integrated master’s design course,
NMiTE, planned for launch next year in
Hereford.
One of the design cohort’s trial
modules was to design a way for
Francesca – who was born with
syndactyly (joined digits) on her left
hand – would hold and play the bow
with ne dexterity and without pain.
Helen Rogers, MEng Programme
Lead at NMiTE, recalled: “At the start
of the project Francesca came in and
presented to our group of twenty- ve
18-25-year olds. Our teams each
took moulds of her hand and went
away to design and manufacture their
solutions.”
Lane adds: “At the end of the trial
module, Francesca returned to try
the prototypes, which included a ball
and socket joint, 3D printing and a
hand-carved wooden nger support.
She was very impressed with all the
designs, and selected one – actually
the simplest design, an elasticated
device easily attachable to the violin
bow – to practise with over the summer
holidays.”
The collaboration between NMiTE
and Francesca was aided by a charity
the OHMI Trust (One Handed Musical
Instruments).
Medical
wearable patented
Aseptika has won a European patent for its
medical-grade wearable, BuddyWOTCH, for use by
patients with severe cardiovascular and respiratory
diseases (EU patent number 3197354, granted
3rd July 2019). Renfrew Group International
contributed to the design and prototyping.
The product will continuously monitor,
record and transmit the patient’s physiological
signs of blood oxygen, heart rate, breathing
rate and temperature 24 hours a day, seven
days a week. With its integrated nine-axis
accelerometer, the device tracks, in real-time,
the patient’s physiological signs and how these
change over time as the patient goes about
daily life. As well as acting as an alert in case of
medical emergencies, this information is used
to continuously calculate the patient’s overall
health and to detect whether the wearer’s health
is getting better or is declining rapidly. The
BuddyWOTCH can be used to test the patient
in a GP clinic using the six-minute walk test –
something usually only performed in a laboratory
setting during sessions at hospital outpatient
clinic appointments.
The BuddyWOTCH platform connects directly
to the company’s Activ8rlives Cloud (or can be
pointed to a partner’s cloud system). Activ8rlives
hosts portals for the patient, for family members
caring for them and for clinicians, providing
continuous monitoring and alerts as well as the
index of tolerance to exercise.
The device will be CE-marked under the EU’s
Regulation on Medical Devices 2017/745 as a
Class IIb medical device, re ecting its role as a
“life-critical medical monitor” replacing a bedside
vital signs monitor for home-use, rather than a
consumer-level accessory. This has been made
possible through the development of Aseptika’s
MediOS, a real-time operating system designed to
be a clinically-certi able operating system for use
in a range of medical monitors.
For more patent news, see also a new regular
patents feature, pp26-7.
Letter to the editor
I was interested to read ‘The Write Stuff’ p4 March/April 2019 concerning manual
dexterity. I worked in the mechanical engineering industry for 11-plus years. Then I
retrained for teaching, and have since taught in further education, in the state sector
for six years, and then in the independent sector at the Manchester Grammar School for
22 years.
I always encouraged my students to get into the habit of using pencil and paper, followed by time
on the drawing board. Even when we introduced computers and CAD/CAM, I did my best to keep them
away from CAD until the third year. Consequently, students developed a habit of using a sketch pad
when developing ideas for project work.
Of particular interest in your article was Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial
College, who complained that medical students’ dexterity is declining.
Over my time as a teacher at the Manchester Grammar School, I saw many talented students who
didn’t always display the highest level of mechanical dexterity. One in particular went for interview at
Edinburgh University in the 1990s to do medicine (with surgery in mind). He did well at interview, but
was sent back to collect his practical work, after which he was offered a place. He returned with this
jewelry box, made from sycamore (pictured).
Apparently, they were concerned about the lack of manual dexterity among students. So it seems
that things haven’t improved, which doesn’t surprise me, since most young people are glued to one
screen or another. Until we begin to wean young people away from screens and on to paper, not much
will change, I’m afraid.
C.J. Owen BA BSc(Hons) IEng MIED MIET
www.ied.org.uk 33
/www.ied.org.uk