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🛠 Technical Skills

• Autodesk Inventor
• Prusa Slicer
• 3-D Printing
• Microsoft Excel
• Canva

🗣️ Power Skills

• Leadership and Project Management
• Organization and Time Management
• Oral and Written Communication
• Collaboration
• Public Speaking

📝 Project Overview

For my first Design Project, my team was tasked with designing and building an ostomy appliance for our patient who had gotten an ileostomy. His previous ostomy bag would undergo gas buildup over time, forcing him to ‘burp’ the bag to release the gas at the most inconvenient of times. His bag was not discreet and the gas had a very noticeable odor.

🎯 Objectives

• Should stick securely to the patient’s skin
• Should release gas
• Should deodorize outgoing gas
• Should be durable
• Should be resistant to moisture

⚠️ Constraints

• Must be cost-effective
• Must not be visible externally when gas builds up
• Must be sterile
• Must have a comfortable weight

⚙️ Design Process

• Early Concepts and Idea Generation
• Our Final Solution
• Team Meetings and Project Planning
• My Contributions

💭 Project Reflection

Over the course of this design project, my approach and thought process for tackling problems changed profoundly. I underwent a significant paradigm shift from being solution-oriented to being problem-oriented. I essentially went from instantly thinking of solutions to more deeply understanding the problem at hand before generating some ideas on how to solve it.

My 3D modeling and printing skills drastically improved and I changed the way think when creating a model in Autodesk Inventor such that the model is optimal for a 3D print.

I became a stronger leader as my experience running team meetings taught me to keep them as succinct and useful as possible. I ensured that our discussions were relevant to the purpose of each meeting, and that everyone was contributing what they had in mind. Our meetings started off being long and we often got off-topic, thereby wasting valuable time. Over time, however, I found effective strategies for keeping our meetings on track, such as preparing not just the agendas, but detailed points and questions for other members, as well as guiding the conversation and making sure that we addressed everything that we needed to.

An alternative solution I considered that would be better than the cap and tube system would be to make the attachment a one-piece sliding mechanism rather than having the cap be separate from the tube since it could easily be lost. The only drawback with this would be that the 3-D modeling would be much more complex with much more room for error.

Ultimately, this project facilitated both my personal and technical growth and I am eager to apply my newfound skills and knowledge by tackling more problems in the future.