Mechanical Basketball Device for Adolescent Male with Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy

INTRODUCTION

The goal of this investigation was to create a mechanical device that would be able to shoot a basketball from different locations around the hoop in an “around the world” type fashion. Since Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy gets progressively worse, the basketball shooter will be equipped with the capability to increase lung capacity by using a sip-in-puff device, then allow for exercise to be increased via head movement. The pressurized device behind his head will allow for different the forces to be applied to the basketball shooter. Having many different stages will allow options as our clients condition deteriorates over time and allow our client to use it as long as possible.

It is planned to use a similar design that a team from the Mechanical Engineering Department at Ohio University has used for a client that was in a wheelchair due to limited mobility in his hips and shoulders, but was able to bend at the waist. However, the client has a more severe form of Muscular Dystrophy and therefore the device originally created by Ohio University will be adjusted to our needs.

The design of the basketball shooter will be engineered by a team at the University of New Hampshire, with the guidance of Northeast Passage, involving the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department under the instruction of Dr. John LaCourse and Dr. Wayne Smith, as well as a mechanical engineer for building purposes. As stated above, the design will be involving a sip-in-puff as a switch, a head sensor to measure the force to be applied (pushing back on the head piece), and head movement will be used to allow for the direction to be chosen. The Jazzy 1107 model wheelchair (Figure 1) will have the basketball shooter (Figure 2 & 3) attached to the side of the wheelchair. The spring and actuator mechanism will be inside a metal frame constructed similarly as Ohio University as done to allow for a safe, effective, relatively low cost instrumentation to be created for our client to live his dream.

Katie Stella, Dr. John LaCourse, and Chris Chirgwin

METHODOLOGY

1) Have weekly meetings to discuss progress and adjustments or complications in design with client and Northeast Passage at the University of New Hampshire.

2) Find any and all basketball, baseball, or throwing assistive devices possible.

- Baseball machine with one and two wheels.- Canon fired basketball.- Spring loaded arm catapult.- Slingshot with use of sip and puff switch.

- Ohio University basketball design.

3) Find different assistive technology to aid in shooting the basketball.

- Head Sensor- XBOX Kinect to read facial

expressions and movement control.- Attach basketball system to side of

wheelchair.- Use of a tongue switch or sip and puff.- Voice commands for movement

adjustments.- Hand joy sticks device.

4) Investigation of a system to pick up the basketball.

- Pinwheel system.- Vacuum tubing.- A large drop opening that basketball

would be placed/or dropped in.

5) First meeting with client to see if the design capabilities meet his expectations and see what will actually be the most effective and efficient functional movements available for this basketball shooter.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was made possible through an NSF Research Experience for Teachers in Engineering grant (ECE-1132648). This was in cooperation with The University of New Hampshire and under the direction of Dr. John LaCourse.

FUTURE WORK

Research conducted will be used in Mrs. Stella’s high school Physical Science classroom to help develop differentiated learning styles as well as inquiry techniques in research and conduct lab work to educate her students’.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Figure 1: Jazzy 1107 model electronic wheelchair (left)

Figure 2: CAD Drawing and side-view picture of basketball shooter (Ohio University Design)(below)

Figure 3:Top-view of the basketball shooter (Ohio University Design)(below).

Functional Capacity Evaluation using a PILE Box Test

This project would use an off-the-shelf personal heart monitor that provides information on pulse rate and blood pressure. Load-cell sensing monitors will provide information about the forces to lift or carry objects during work. As a result, these devices will record real-time electronic data for analysis by using a common USB interface to a personal computer. Thus, at the user’s discretion, “live” data can be “piped” to software applications, which in turn performs safety and physical exertion calculations. This data can be both stored for later analysis and can be return to the user in real time.

This research project is supported by Roy Matheson and Associates (RMA) through the NH-IRC. The company offers training in “Functional Capacity Evaluation”, a process whereby accident victims and soldiers can be evaluated for their feasibility for rehabilitation and their potential ability to return to work. This study will determine the compatibility and functional abilities of the instrumentation to use later to obtain quantitative data. The company also offers Functional Capacity and Ergonomic Evaluation Software.

RMA is looking to improve market place competitiveness of its software products by providing functional capacity and ergonomic evaluators with real-time access to data obtained by wireless heart and blood pressure monitors and wireless load sensors. The technological innovation we’re pursuing would link off-the-shelf heart rate, blood pressure and load cell monitors with personal computers to transfer test results data in real-time. The integration of hardware and software we propose would transfer data from these commonly available heart rate and blood pressure monitors and load sensing devices via a common interface to our existing software.

INTRODUCTION

Our long-term objective is to gather human physiological exertion data and force interface data during functional capacity and ergonomic engineering tasks with low-cost off-the-shelf devices (Figure 4) and then, wirelessly transmit that data to a laptop computer for functional capacity and ergonomic risk factor analysis for capability-task matching. After this has been reached, a more quantitative analysis method of observation will be done to allow for the clinician to visually and objectively monitor their patient(s).

PURPOSE

The specific aims of this proposal support our long-term objective and they are:1.To survey and assess off-the-shelf devices that measure heart rate, blood pressure, and body-part force interface that are low-cost, reusable, hypoallergenic, and that can be interfaced for wireless transmission of data.2.To develop a strategy for transmitting data to an existing platform and software.3.To assess the system for performance against traditional medical devices.4.To assess the system for performance with student/teacher volunteers using traditional but modified functional capacity and ergonomic risk factor evaluation.

METHODOLOGY

1.Student/Teacher (Figure 2 & 3) participant (not-compensated) will be sure not to eat food 2 hours prior to testing. Participants are required to also not drink caffeinated or sugary drinks at all within in those 2 hours before testing. Participants will let us know if they have not followed this outline of instruction.2.Student/Teacher (Figure 2 & 3) participants will be given a video demonstration as to how to lift properly in order to make sure they will not further injure or injure themselves in the process of this research evaluation.3.Student/Teacher (Figure 2 & 3) participants will be given dynamic exercises to complete prior to the test to prevent injury and warm the muscles in order to obtain the most accurate results possible.4.Testing will be done individually and separately on different days in order to ensure there are no outside influences amongst colleagues or peers.5.During testing, a mobile blood pressure unit will be attached to the left wrist and a mobile heart rate monitor will be attached to the right wrist of the volunteer. The volunteer will be allowed to sit and rest for approximately 10 minutes to allow retrieval of base-line resting conditions and to ensure that the software is functioning properly.6.After 10 minutes, the volunteer will be asked to participate in regiment which includes lifting different weights via a Matheson Lift Box (PILE Box, Figure 1). During this time data will be collected on heart rate, blood pressure and load-force of the lift and the acceleration of the lift.7.During the strength testing, volunteers will stop when they show fatigue and/or experience weakness. 8.At the end of the strength test, volunteers will be asked to sit for 10 minutes and then their heart rate and blood pressure will be taken to ensure establishment of their pretest heart rate and blood pressure. 9.Following the completion of the strength testing, analysis will be conducted on the data in order to see if instrumentation is working properly to ensure that future quantitative analysis completed later on will be done effectively and efficiently.10.Once data is complete, volunteers will be thanked for their time and effort in the testing of the equipment for this study.

•The test will approximately one hour.

Figure 1: (above) Looking into the PILE Box

Figure 2: (upper right) A picture of the participant in the study lifting the PILE Box.

Figure 3: (lower right) A picture of another participant placing the PILE Box on a shelf.

Figure 4: (left) Results from the previous PILE Box tests with X, Y, and Z axis, force sensor data, weight, heart rate results.

Both of these projects are currently in the brainstorming process using trial and error to replicate previous studies in order to expand from previous results. Therefore, there will be results and conclusions when these studies expand and move beyond the methodology piece.