Statheros
A conceptual design of a cup that enables essential tremor patients to perform daily activities without intervention
A cup designed to deliver utility in vibration dampening, reliability in ensuring patient wellbeing, and aesthetics that doesn’t draw unwanted attention, and thus providing essential tremor patients with both functional and emotional value.
Actively collaborated with team members to brainstorm and refine ideas. Ensured that everyone's perspectives were considered, leading to innovative solutions that met the project's goals.
Utilized an agile approach to design, allowing for rapid prototyping and iterative improvements. This approach helped in adapting quickly to changes and feedback, ensuring the final design concept was both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Regularly presented design progress in academic settings and peer review sessions. This helped in receiving constructive feedback and further refining the design approach.
01
Essential tremors inhibit patients from performing the daily task of drinking from a standard cup.
Contribution
Ideation, Sketching, Storyboarding, Prototyping, Design Research and Analysis
Tools
CAD, Sketchup, Miro, Figma
Team
Group (4 members)
Type
Product, 3D, research, concept
03
10 Million people in the US are diagnosed with essential tremor.
02
General neurologists treating tremor have a diagnostic error rate of 25% to 35%.
PROBLEM SCOPE
How might we develop a user-friendly and affordable assistive technology solution that empowers essential tremor patients to regain independence in performing everyday tasks, such as drinking from a standard cup, effectively improving their quality of life and eliminating the need to endure the stigma of traditional treatment options?
Context
Essential tremor is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary rhythmic shaking. It can affect any part of the body, but the trembling is more prominent in the hands and less prominent in the head and voice.
Objective
Aim to design an intelligent, sensor based device that can perceive the tremor produced in the hands of the patients while they perform their daily activity of drinking from a cup.
Scope
Being aware of the constant challenges and given that tremor related disability can be significant, this design project is a stepping stone towards solving it.
Process
Storyboard
After conducting preliminary research and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the issue at hand, I proceeded to design a storyboard that effectively illustrates the profound emotional significance experienced by individuals coping with tremors in their day-to-day existence.
Goal of Statheros is to improve drinking experience for tremor patients by means of vibration rejection.
Prototyping
.
Ideation
Handle
End Cap Top
Beta Prototype
Cup holder
Servo
.
To maximize both functionality and aesthetic appeal for assistive cup holders, multiple ideas were made during sequential brainstorming sessions and also a beta prototype concept which is a passive system.
Design Analysis
DESIGN VALIDATION
What values will Statheros bring to the user?
01
Diminish stress of drinking in social settings
02
Less spillage therefore a better drinking experience
03
Lessen the chance of the user hitting his/her face with the cup, lowering the risk of injury
Retrospective
Setting realistic milestones
Building empathy for a user population I did not know a lot about helped me grow immensely as a designer.
I enjoyed doing research and developing ideas during the course of this project. I worked with a team of mechanical engineers and they were more focused on the engineering aspects of the product.
I was able to learn and build my understanding of engineering design and used this as an opportunity to leverage my skills in user experience design to formulate design concepts for the product.
Since I designed and developed several concepts, my knowledge of feasibility and technical constraints improved drastically, and I was able to set realistic product milestones.
Opportunities
As a result of the limited time and resources available to our team, we encountered certain limitations in terms of technical implementation, leading to an impact on features and designs.
Given more time, I would have liked to work on establishing partnerships and relationships with medical institutions to generate more awareness and work around developing this concept to a viable product for tremor patients.
View my other projects here