Today we went right to the school of engineering and was there for a good chunk of time. We started in the lab listening to another research team about their project. A wheelchair with sensors, that tracks the center of mass of the patient and provides that information to the doctors. We got a quick demonstration of it before starting with our project.

We spilt into groups of nurses and engineers in order to create a device that solves an issue that’s present in the hospital setting. My groups issue was dignity with defecation. We started by doing some role play of acting as the patients and nurses while assisting the patient using a bedpan. During this role play we realized how invasive and embarrassing it can be when you cannot even use the bathroom alone. So, we started planning our project and design of the device to help change this issue. We all gave different broad ideas to start and then we landed on a special type of bed specifically for hospice patients. Then we began to work out the smaller details and fix some of our original device’s issues.

Our device is a bed with 4 smaller sections of the mattress; it splits where the patients rear end is and two of the pieces can move out to the side. When this occurs a toilet seat, that has a bag connected to it, that raises from underneath the mattress. This seat has a built-in bidet that can clean the patient without the help of a nurse. This was our main idea we focused on since this would be able to help the patient with feeling less dependent on the nurses. The nurse would have to change the bag after the patient is done using the bathroom but otherwise the patient would be able to do it by themselves.

We created a protype and then presented it to our larger group. While doing this we realized some other parts of our project were not fully thought through. The main thing we didn’t think about that this system would leave the patient wet from the water system with no way to dry themselves. Also, we thought through the sanitary issues and came up with some ways to make sure it was sanitary, but it is hard to confirm our ideas would work.

Then we had a quick lunch and headed to the fine arts museum. It was a guided tour and we learned a lot about Denise Scott Brown and viewed a lot of her art.  She was a famous architect who designed many buildings in Philadelphia. Afterwards a group of us went shopping and grabbed some dinner. Such a good day and I can’t wait for tomorrow!!