Building better ideas: Graduate-led design for accessibility wins student design competition
Last month, fifth-year mechanical engineering students Jack Chapman, Katie Gillespie, Connor Gough and Matthew Lane won the third annual MUN Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) Design Competition for their MatHat design.
The CSME Student Chapter aims to build an active student environment in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and provides trips, workshops, and other events for mechanical engineering students as well as opportunities to connect with industry, professionals and academia across the country.
In June 2018, Mr. Chapman and Ms. Gillespie, along with second-year nursing student Grace Clarke and fourth-year neuroscience student Emma Dornan, won first place at the Innovative Designs for Accessibility (IDeA) student competition. The competition, which is held by Universities Canada on behalf of Employment and Social Development Canada, challenges students to use their creativity to develop innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions to accessibility-related issues resulting in communities that are more accessible for persons with disabilities.
Their MatHat concept, a head and neck device designed to mimic the feel and support of human hands to provide support for individuals who live with severe cerebral palsy, was designed for 10-year-old Mat Squires, a boy with severe spastic cerebral palsy. His current head support device provides inadequate support to allow Mat to use his eye gaze communication device and has caused pressure sores on his head and neck. The team wanted to build a device (called a MatHat) that overcomes these barriers for Mat.
In the senior mechanical engineering project, all mechanical engineering students are tasked with a capstone design project in the final year of their program. Mr. Chapman and Ms. Gillespie partnered with Connor Gough and Matthew Lane. The foursome decided to build upon last year’s MatHat design that won Mr. Chapman and Ms. Gillespie first place at the IDeA competition.
“That semester we iterated through three major prototypes as part of our senior design project,” said Mr. Chapman. “We had a few concepts for each portion of the MatHat and we wanted to ensure that the final product easily attached to Mat’s wheelchair. We didn’t want to add any extra hardware.”
Now a team of six, they designed a revised shape of the shell. They took a plastic cast of Mat’s head, scanned it and transferred it into three-dimensional modelling software. On the inside of the shell, ergonomic pads layered in breathable materials can be removed, washed or replaced and dampening pads allow for some spring action to support Mat’s head.
The final product is one that the students are incredibly proud of since it received Mat’s stamp of approval.
“When Mat tried on the final product, he used his eye-gaze device to tell us he liked it,” said Mr. Chapman. “That was huge for us because it not only showed us that Mat could successfully use his eye-gaze device with the MatHat but that he also liked wearing it.”
According to Mr. Chapman, there are over 9,600 people in Canada like Mat who could benefit from having a device like the MatHat.
“Every year in the mechanical engineering class, there are approx. 20 senior projects,” said Mr. Chapman. “It was wonderful to create something unique and innovative as part of our final project.”
“We all wanted to do something more with our degree,” he said. “It’s rewarding to become involved in projects that can help improve the lives of others. With your engineering program, there is always room for projects similar to the MatHat that you can become involved in on the side.”
Dr. Greg Naterer, dean, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, is proud and impressed with the students and their MatHat design.
“Congratulations to all the students involved,” he said. “It’s innovative thinking like this MatHat design that will improve the lives of others and Memorial engineering students are leading the way.”
The team would like to thank the School of Human Kinetics and Recreation, MUN Med 3D, Mat Squires, Sarah Hendrickson (Mat's mom), Drs. Oscar De Silva, Leonard Lye and Sam Nakhla from the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, for their tremendous support.