During the project our group have encountered some problems and solved them. Based on those experiences, we write down helpful point for the future development:
Current design not expected to support the average person.
When we design this project, metal was main material for building project. Due to weight, we changed metal to wood.
In our design, we needed light weight. On the other hand, our final result is not expected to support the average person's weight yet. However, it will be developed from current design limit to better model.- Use appropriate tool for dealing with material
Our group experienced a lot of trials and errors, when we did wood work. We learned that wood should be dealt carefully when it is screwed. There were unexpected cracks when we screwed with power screw-gun. With this trials and errors, we used hand screw first and last, and power screw-gun was used in the middle operation. - Bolts length
The proper bolt length should be considered in the design stage of project. Without much considering bolts length, we had to find out other way to combine first prototype. To overcome this experience, we carefully designed final project with considering bolts length and it was successful. - Bolts length
Before design project, we discussed which movement is helpful for patients between going up and down. Designing moving upward is much easier than downward, however, patients are only able to pull up handle. Thus, we changed our movement concept to downward when handle is pulled by combining two 4-bar mechanism. - Miscellaneous
The toggle points can hold handle on its initial position without specific gear of locker mechanism.
In overall process of our project, we learned a number of new knowledge from parts designing and prototyping to building the final model. For doing this successful work, we spent much time with Solidwork to design best model and MATLAB to design and calculate best position of each part. Nevertheless, our model need to be developed in some points.
With improving above conditions, our project will be useful in the real world. From first to last, we did not make perfect model, however, we make successful model that satisfy demanding from patients.