Today, we started the day at the School of Engineering, where we listened to a presentation from Mikel, one of the members of the Oreka Balance team. His presentation focused on balance and the many different systems in the body that contribute to it. He explained how balance involves much more than just coordination and…
Tag: Plus3 Spain
Day 11: Tekniker and Hiking
Today was our 11th day in Bilbao! We started off the day with our usual morning breakfast before boarding the bus to head to Tekniker, an engineering company. Once we arrived, we met the head of the health sector at the company. He gave us a brief overview of the way the company is structured…
Day 11! Tekniker and the Painted Forest!
Day 11 started off with us getting picked up by a bus and heading right for a company visit. We went to the headquarters of Tekniker, an engineering company. We got a presentation from one of the people within the company who works in the health sector of this company. They are a private organization,…
Bilbao Day 10: Workshop and Stadium Tour
Today, we started off by heading over to the School of Engineering for a few presentations. The first focused on balance and its three main components, which are visual, auditory, and vestibular. We learned that if one of these systems is impaired, balance can be affected. We also discussed concepts like the base of support,…
Day 10: Balance and Football
Today was our 10th day in Bilbao! This trip has flown by. We started off the day with our usual morning breakfast before heading off to the School of Engineering. Once we arrived, we attended a workshop led by Professor Mikel on balance. He described his research around balance such as what are the different…
Day 10 in Bilbao!! Football Stadium and Balance!!
Today we started out back at the engineering building with a presentation about balance. We learned about the different systems involved and how they all work together. If you take away one, most likely your balance will not be as good. We learned also about different balance tests. We walked through a few of them,…
Day 10: Football & Foot-Balancing
To start off our first double-digit day in Bilbao, we listened to some more presentations focused on the topic of balance. Here, we learned all about how balance actually works in our body, the ways that devices currently address balance issues, and how balance issues are actually evaluated. A great portion of our discussion focussed…
Day 9: Projects and Art
Today we were back in the school of engineering after what felt like the longest, but one of the most fun, weekends ever. However, today we went to a different room (not the designated plus3 room) because it was project day. My group was assigned with finding a solution to dignity through defecation. Dignity through…
Day 10: Athletic Club
Today’s activities started off with a lecture on balance and the different things that can inhibit balance. Examples of this include neurological problems, vestibular problems, or muscular problems. We then talked about different devices that have been created to help people regain balance depending on the cause of their loss of balance. One example of…
Day 9- Workshop day!
Today we started the day at the School of Engineering, where we visited one of the research groups working in the labs. They gave us a presentation about a wheelchair they were developing that used sensors to track a patient’s center of mass. It was really interesting to see how engineering and healthcare can work…
Bilbao Day 9: Mitgating Patient Falls and Real Art
The temperate air and cool breeze felt refreshing on our walk over to the Bilbao School of Engineering in the morning. Saioa met us at the front of the school as we walked upstairs to the bioengineering lab. In a brief demonstration, two students showed us their current projects, which were a forearm crutch and…
Day ten in Bilbao!
Today was another great day in Bilbao! We started off by learning about the balance machine at the university! It was very interesting to learn about the three factors to balance, visual, auditory, and vestibular. It was also interesting to learn about base of support, center of mass, and center of pressure. We learned about…
Balance(ing) Life in Bilbao
We had an interesting start to our day by listening to an engineering professor discuss his research and development of the Balance device. This project is about designing a platform system that can be used to help diagnose balance problems. It is similar to the Oreka-Balance machine, but instead of one connected platform, its two…
Day nine in Bilbao!
Today was another fun day in Bilbao! We started off by doing our workshop! My team was tasked with creating a method to increase dignity during defecation for hospital patients who need to use a bedpan or diaper. We decided to redesign a bed for hospice patients that is mostly hands-off for the nurses. The…
Day 9: Design Workshop and Museum!!
Today was another fantastic day in Bilbao! We started off the day early with a great breakfast from the hotel, and then headed over to the engineering school where we first met with a research group in the biomedical engineering laboratory to talk about the various devices that they were developing, in particular a mobile…
Day 9: Workshopping & Appreciating
To start day 9 in Bilbao, we visited a research lab at the University of the Basque Country’s School of Engineering. Here, they focus on sensor devices instead of the assistance devices that we have seen so far. One of their current designs is a crutch than can detect that in the event someone falls,…
Day 9: Workshop and Museum!
Today was one of the most interactive and collaborative days we’ve had so far in Bilbao! In the morning, we headed to the engineering school where we learned about a research project involving smart wheelchairs designed to monitor pressure distribution and patient positioning. The team demonstrated how the sensors respond to shifts in body weight…
Balance Workshop and Stadium Tour
We spent most of our day completing a workshop about balance. Throughout this program we have been learning about the Oreka-Balance project that our guest professors Saioa and Mikel have been working on. This project’s goal is to create a device that quantitatively measures a patient’s balance. They created a platform with force sensors that…
Day 9: Workshop and Museum
Today I had a rough start to the morning; my alarm didn’t go off. So what was supposed to be a 7:40 wake-up for an 8:30 meet-up turned into an 8:30 wake-up for an 8:30 meet-up. Luckily, Sascha and I got ready fast and got down to the lobby by 8:35, where Dr. Professor was…
Marvelous Monday: Design Project Edition
We began our second Monday in Spain by visiting a research group in the engineering school at the university. Their work focuses on utilizing sensors to understand when and how a patient is at risk of losing their balance and falling off wheelchairs, and further customizations to better accommodate patients. They were also working on…