Service
Buck's Fishing Rod Report
My work with VLINC has been a sustained effort starting through my freshman year to now. I have had the opportunity to work on several projects throughout my time at UMBC. This service component focuses on Bucks Fishing Rod Project. Through the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a group of interclass students and I are developing an attachment to a wheelchair to help a man paralyzed on half his body to fish more independently. In addition, I have been involved in the VLINC community and other project teams. My capstone work is through the organization (see the interdisciplinary section). VLINC got me interested in working with people more. The fulfillment I have felt to help enable people to have a better quality of life has led directly to my passion for healthcare robotics for my PhD. With regards to my specific grand challenge, engineering scientific tools of discovery requires scientists and engineers to be public servants. We must constantly weight the impacts of our devices and processes and ensure they are for the public good at the most fundamental level.
OTHER VLINC WORK
Another project I participated in (to a smaller degree) was Rachel's Dressing Device. Rachel has a mental disability and has trouble dressing herself, so we designed a stand of sorts for her clothing to put it on easier. I worked on the electronic side to integrate music and a display with directions that would activate as she woke up to help motivate her. Furthermore, in the spring of my freshman year, our statics class was tasked to design a ramp structure, up to ADA standards, for a man who’s ramp was falling apart. I was the lead designer and we created an entire ramp, parts list and static analysis. The part that I really enjoyed is that out of the entire class my ramp design was chosen as the one to be built for the family’s home. Seeing my skills and knowledge in action to help people in need is extremely fulfilling.
Integrity – When working with a client for a device that they interact directly with, it is important to consider how your design choices might affect them. For example, some materials we chose for the system were more expensive but they were chosen in mind to ensure Buck could affect use the system with one hand.
Perspectivism – With input from many students as well as practicing engineers we had to strike a good balance between them while still putting Buck first in the project. For example, we didn’t initially consider the safety of the situation and after talking to a physical therapist we adopted the “if it can go wrong it will” strategy.
Teamwork – This was the first team of engineers I would work with at UMBC and they were all mechanical but from all years. I was the youngest on the team and was very excited to learn a great deal about the engineering design process.
Persistence - We continually had difficulty on settling on a design through the process as many had differing opinions and our client had difficulty talking so we couldn’t get much input from his side. Eventually we would find a solution but the long debate would end up prolonging what we wished to get done in the time frame.
Flexibility – With the project spanning across so many years of experience, it was very helpful for students
Community Engagement - Additionally, through VLINC we have served as a volunteer pool to help with different events such as capstone team presentations and facilitating VLINC members to campus to give advice to the capstone teams. The solutions teams create are often shared among different VLINC projects and passed on.
Civic Agency - VLINC’s mission is to connect engineers in need of experience with people in need of an engineering solution to help them overcome their disability. All of our clients are local and it is run by a set of retired and current mechanical engineers in the Baltimore Area. Participating in VLINC through college has been a fantastic outlet to help my community and practice my skills at the same time.
Capacity for Reflection - The VLINC experience ended up being one of the motivating experiences to run for ASME president. I found great satisfaction in helping the different clients we have had. In the 2017-2018 year, we worked to make it possible for others to get into the Society and make a stronger department and heal our community one project at a time.
Community Engagement - The VLINC program helped this set of UMBC engineers and Aakash get involved with local families and also educated them on the upkeep of the different devices we made.
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Service specific learning objectives includes communication, civic agency and capacity for reflection. Working with Buck directly was impactful. He was a stroke victim and couldn’t communicate past yes or no questions. So, to get his input on the project was very difficult. We had to completely adapt our set of questions to lead along this yes/no path to find a solution that he could understand and he had a say in. With regards to capacity Asking good questions is incredibly important in my future as a healthcare robotisist and with engineering scientific tools of discovery. If the “right” questions are asked, the system can be best created from a data driven approach vs. an intuition approach.