Research Platform Services Blog
Month
by Vincent Khau
Taking away second place, we had Clarence, Kim, Tajanka, and Sarah improving the design of colostomy bags to provide an increased quality of life to patients. The judges loved the idea, congratulations!
Pitch number 5, Deltacore to improve the quality of life of stoma patients #MEDevice @ResPlat @thevinniek pic.twitter.com/rMytxCbt6Z
— Jas Coles-Black (@JasamineCB)
October 4, 2016
by Vincent Khau
Tackling back pain caused by bad posture, Stefan, Vlad, Chris, Brandon, and Sumudu delivered a prototype product of wearable sensors that could provide the user with a real-time representation of their posture - it even gives you tips to correct it for better posture! Awesome to see a functional prototype from concept to product all within 4 weeks!
Backup did an excellent presentation! Good luck! @sumuduperera_ @ResPlat @thevinniek @JasamineCB #MEDevice pic.twitter.com/fqgHvJ37pV
— Aliza w (@awajih08)
October 4, 2016
by Vincent Khau
Coming in third we have SoleGuard! Tim, John, Sophie, Jenny, and Jesus investigated foot ulcers in diabetic patients and devised an intelligent preventative measure to this highly relevant medical issue. Well done!
Pitch#2 “Soleguard” - #3Dprinted multilayer personalised insoles to prevent #diabeticfoot ulcers. @dgarmstrong this one’s for you! #MEDevice pic.twitter.com/31N7X7J70T
— Jason C (@ozvascdoc)
October 4, 2016
by Vincent Khau
Here we have the winners, composed of Shing, Felicia, Laura, Anu, Gerard, Mubin, and Dennis. They looked at using negative pressure (i.e. a vacuum) to close wounds too delicate for standard procedures - they even went as far as a proof of concept on a cut chicken breast! Congratulations guys!
Pitch number 4! Airstitch! #MEDevice @ResPlat pic.twitter.com/OrGp41zjRn
— Jas Coles-Black (@JasamineCB)
October 4, 2016
by Vincent Khau
The AutoVein team at MEDevice was made up of Tom, Anna, Michael, Dilini, Aaren, and Chandra who collectively tackled the problem of cannulation inaccuracies. Their solution? Automate the process with a robotic device for 100% success rate!
Autovein-automating inoculation! Really awesome pitch! #MEDevice @ResPlat @thevinniek @JasamineCB pic.twitter.com/CKS4ByGA3r
— Aliza w (@awajih08)
October 4, 2016
by Vincent Khau
Recently Research Platforms Services, with sponsorship from Autodesk, ran a hackathon for medical device innovation at the University of Melbourne. Postgraduate students from the Engineering faculty, and the Medicine, Dentistry, and Health Sciences (MDHS) came together in this cross-disciplinary collaboration to create and develop a medical device product over the course of 4 weeks. It aimed to encourage exciting conversations between faculties that normally do not interact with one another, to create and inspire new ideas. And we did exactly that!
In the first week over on the top floor of the Melbourne Brain Centre, we had the pleasure and honour of hearing from keynote speakers Mr Jason Chuen, Dr Andre Tan, and Ms Michelle Mannering present on a variety of topics ranging from successes and failures of medical devices, to medical device start-ups, and innovation with the Australian climate. These presentations helped contextualise the importance of collaboration between disciplines, as well as highlighting key considerations in product development and pointing out common pitfalls that many medical device products run into. They also provided a great source of entertainment and motivation for the attendees!
.@ayftan: my goto person for advice on #MEDevice development #innovation #hackathon @ResPlat @unimelb @Austin_Health pic.twitter.com/mslCwegUte
— Jason C (@ozvascdoc)
September 13, 2016
Health insurance effect: it make a big difference to market a drug delivery device as a prosthesis!#medevice pic.twitter.com/H2Mxaev52B
— Rosita Shishegar (@RShishegar)
September 13, 2016
Following the presentations, we needed to do some quick speed-dating to get acquainted and form teams for the next few weeks. In total we had 5 teams with each team having at least one clinical student, and one engineering student. The diversity in knowledge was instrumental in identifying problems to solve in the current medical space, in addition to having the skill-set required in how to devise solutions to these problems. We fostered an excellent conversation, with participants staying well past the proposed finish time to keep discussing their ideas.
@thevinniek getting crazy with #speeddating #medivice! 😂 #resbaz pic.twitter.com/HLM4OgZU1b
— Emilie Walsh (@emilouwalsh)
September 13, 2016
Teams #meddevice! @resplat pic.twitter.com/SDtqPQAyVA
— Aliza w (@awajih08)
September 13, 2016
In the second week of MEDevice everyone got more technical with their ideas and concepts, befitting of the Engineering Workshop environment. We had an introductory Computer Aided Design (CAD) session by our Research Community Coordinator Emilie Walsh, followed by a crash course in rapid prototyping using additive manufacturing - a group even got creative and used 3D scanning technology to scan a foot! These are key approaches in almost any hackathon to figure out if your idea works, and if not, to fail fast and pivot onto the next iteration. Equipped with these skills, the teams worked on their product ideas and delivered a quick pitch at the end of the session, receiving feedback from each other along the way.
Busy #hacking on their #MEDevice! Off to a buzzing start! @awajih08 @JasamineCB @MishManners @ozvascdoc @ayftan pic.twitter.com/lk0DJ4z7bZ
— Vincent Khau (@thevinniek)
September 20, 2016
Keen beans @ #MEDevice #3Dscanning a foot? @ResPlat @JasamineCB @ozvascdoc @ayftan pic.twitter.com/wG49116ljG
— Vincent Khau (@thevinniek)
September 27, 2016
With the product development phase well on its way, the third week delved into the questions of ’How does one structure a pitch? How do I pitch perfect?’. To answer these, we invited Professor Michael Vitale from the Wade Institute to teach us the basics of pitching. Over the course of an hour, the teams learned different pitch formats and had the opportunity to practise their newly acquired skills in preparation for the fourth and final week - Pitch Night!
Some sweet short pitches coming out of week 3 of #MEDevice!! With Prof. Vitale @Wade_Institute @thevinniek @JasamineCB @awajih08 pic.twitter.com/gilns7avB9
— Bobby Li (@bobbyli22)
September 27, 2016
Prof Vitale coaches participants in how to deliver the classic elevator pitch. #MEDevice @ResPlat @awajih08 @thevinniek @bobbyli22 pic.twitter.com/7WsUWJEEJb
— Jas Coles-Black (@JasamineCB)
September 27, 2016
On Pitch Night, we were joined by the judges who had the not so envious task of picking a winning team - Dr. Kerry Hegarty, Prof. Geoff McColl, Prof. David Grayden, Prof. Peter Lee, and Dr. Eka Moseshvilli. Held in the Ian Potter Auditorium at the Melbourne Brain Centre, the teams presented the cumulation of their hard work; a brilliant range of solutions tackling medical issues from auto-cannulation devices, improved colostomy bags, preventative foot ulcer measures, to back-posture correcting wearables, and negative pressure wound therapy! Although I felt each team were equally deserving of a prize, there could only be one winner and the congratulations go to AirStitch for their technique to treat small wounds with negative pressure. Placing second and third were DeltaCore and Soleguard respectively. Check out the photos taken during the event here.
Thanks @gjmccoll for announcing the winners of #MEDevice Pitch Night, and @autodesk for supporting this event.
Oh, who won? - Airstitch! pic.twitter.com/6kAdUKyLWz— Austin 3DMed Lab (@3dmedLab)
October 4, 2016
Drum roll please! And the winners are AIR STITCH! #MEDevice @ResPlat pic.twitter.com/KSGs3Sj9Cl
— Aliza w (@awajih08)
October 4, 2016
I would like to thank all the participants for dedicating their time to their MEDevice - the high calibre of ideas discussed were certainly inspiring and I hope you all enjoyed the experience and developed lasting connections. Thank you to Autodesk for generously sponsoring the prizes, we absolutely look forward to future collaborations. Thanks also go out to John Xue, for sharing his thoughts and experience of MEDevice.
We also pass on our thanks to @autodesk for sponsoring #MEDevice! pic.twitter.com/DXgdvL9Omr
— Research Platforms (@ResPlat)
September 13, 2016
If you’re interested in getting involved with our future hackathons, keep an eye on this blog and our Twitter - we’ll be sure to announce it here first! In the meanwhile, we’ll be organising ResBaz 2017 - check it out, hope to see you there! Any questions or comments, feel free to get in touch with me at vincent.khau@unimelb.edu.au!
By Bobby Li
This year Research Platforms Services continued their support of the Autodesk Inventor QuickStart program which is an initiative run by a small team of students from within the mechanical community within the Melbourne School of Engineering. The program, initiated by Dr. Colin Burvill, aims to give participants a quick and easy way to start using computer-aided design (CAD) tools.
The program was run over a five-week period August and September, where each week there would be two one-hour sessions to introduce new CAD concepts every week. It was an excellent program that did extremely well, bringing in an overall 160 participants from a number of different engineering fields, ranging from mechanical, electrical, and environments.
The team was comprised of eight post-graduate students who had all just undergone a two-day intensive introductory CAD training session themselves, held on the 29th-30th June.
Everyone working hard in the autodesk inventor workshop @ResPlat pic.twitter.com/WNlo17e7un
— Bobby Li (@bobbyli22)
June 29, 2016
Passing on the torch to @bobbyli22 in this Inventor class! pic.twitter.com/6ZGuaF8aZN
— Aliza w (@awajih08)
June 29, 2016
This is one of the biggest Autodesk Inventor training workshops that we run at the University, with around 40 engineering students in attendance to learn essential CAD skills that is crucial in helping them complete their capstone projects, and coursework in the latter half of the year.
Thanks to all the helpers after an exhausting day 1. Autodesk Inventor Training @ResPlat pic.twitter.com/ScsYRyBG60
— Bobby Li (@bobbyli22)
June 29, 2016
From here, our eight students were given formal training in both the CAD content and teaching skills, which even included becoming classroom helpers in another one of our full two-day introduction to CAD workshop on the 29th-30th July.
Second day of Inventor workshop going strong in the CoLab!! @ResPlat @awajih08 @thevinniek pic.twitter.com/zVDA1ikbhK
— Bobby Li (@bobbyli22)
July 31, 2016
Across the five weeks, the team was divided so that could all lead their own sessions - each session would be structured so that there would be a lead demonstrator and an assisting demonstrator.
First Inventor workshop for @ResPlat @awajih08 @thevinniek pic.twitter.com/FWvO2mc47e
— Bobby Li (@bobbyli22)
July 30, 2016
The beauty of the QuickStart program was that it was students teaching other students and sharing their CAD knowledge with the wider engineering community - if we didn’t know the answer to some of the questions, no problem! We worked together to figure it out, an important aspect of any community-driven program.
Overall, a fantastic initiative to ease students into becoming proficient CAD users. We had many students returning week after week eager to continue developing their skills, as well as building the confidence in our demonstrators as they became more effective teachers with each passing week.
We are extremely happy that many of you found this program helpful - the comments we received were positive and endearing. If you only found out about this just now, or couldn’t participate this year, we hope to see you at one of our trainings or next year’s QuickStart Program as we continue growing this program and community in future years.