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For most people, weight fluctuates throughout the day and night. As a result one can lose as much as 700 grams over the course of the night, even if they do not eat or go to the bathroom. Much of this is related to metabolism, as well as water loss. We would like to be able to measure this weight change accurately on people who are in hospital beds. This will require that our device record the patient’s weight every fifteen minutes. The device would likely have to support a hospital bed, which sits on four legs, and read at an accuracy between 0.02- 0.05 lbs. Ideally the device could be moved to a different bed without too much difficulty (one to two hours time) and without complex recalibration.
From the left: Eric Printz, Kyle Herzog, Joe Ferris, and Ben Engel
Top view of our mounted load cell
Side view of our mounted load cell
| Week | Reporting Period Beginning | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | September 8 | Assigned a project, exchanged contact information, team roles, email client, first team meeting |
| 2 | September 15 | Met with client, independent research, meeting with advisor |
| 3 | September 22 | Individual team meeting to discuss potential designs, contacted client, met with advisor, independent research on parts for design |
| 4 | September 29 | Analyzed load cell of an actual scale, met with client to discuss our potential design idea, completed PDS, met with advisor and a graduate student who will be able to help us in the future |
| 5 | October 6 | Purchased computer program that will allow us to view the load cell readings on the computer from DATAQ, purchased a 44 lbf load cell from Aerocon corp,team meeting to divide up paper |
| 6 | October 13 | Completed midsemester report, prepared Powerpoint presentation, met Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday to make revisions on paper and presentation |
| 7 | October 20 | Gave midsemester presentation, put the final touches on our midsemester design report, made sure that our design notebooks were up to date, met with Professor Block on Thursday night to discuss our presentation and future plans, completely peer evaluations online |
| 8 | October 27 | Met on Wednesday night to begin hooking up our load cell and ADC, emailed the BME secretary to find out how to gain access to the electronics lab in the basement of ECB |
| 9 | November 3 | Met Friday during class time and filled out the necessary forms to gain access to the electronics lab,the machine shop, and the biomedical labs in ECB; picked up access cards on Monday and can now work in these labs; met on Monday night to prepare to build the test stand; found the materials necessary in the scrap metal and scrap materials areas on the machine shop; found that will need two bolts and nuts to secure the load cell to the test stand, Kyle went to the police department to get the access card to ECB and also went to a hardware store and purchased the nuts and bolts. Tuesday night Eric and Ben built the test stand; we are now ready to begin hooking the load cell up to the ADC; Thursday night we met at ECB and hook up a waveform generator to the ADC |
| 10 | November 10 | Met last Thursday night to hook a wave form generator up to the ADC. We were able to get a reading on the computer which is very promising. We then went to the biomedical lab and hooked up a battery to the load cell and the load cell to the ADC. Eric and Ben will meet with Professor Block on Thursday night to try to troubleshoot and see what the problem is with the set up. Friday we went to a special lecture about the machine shop in ECB |
| 11 | November 17 | THANKSGIVING BREAK |
| 12 | December 1 | In class time last Friday before Thanksgiving break we spent some time researching amplifiers for our load cell signal. We found a website that has the schematics for an amplifier that looks like it will work. We purchased the amplifier for $5 and it arrived later that week. • Eric and Ben met with Professor Block just before break and were able to hook up the load cell properly so that a change in signal can be seen when force is applied, but an amplifier will be needed due to the extremely small signal. We met at ECB to begin construction of the circuit for the amplifier |
| 13 | December 8 | We met on Saturday morning at ECB to begin work on the poster, build the amplifier circuit, and put together our entire final prototype. Eric built the ideal amplifier and an alternative one while Joe and Kyle worked on the poster. This alternative circuit worked and we were able to see the load cell operating on the DATAQ software on the laptop. We met again on Monday night to finish up work on the poster and attempt to put together our final prototype again and make sure it functions properly. Kyle had the poster printed at the CIMC on Tuesday. We calibrated out device with small weights. We met on Thursday to go over the presentation. We had our final presentation |
| 14 | December 15 | We finished up our paper and handed on our notebooks on Wednesday. We had our client and advisors meetings of Friday. |
| 15 | December 22 | Gave back all our supplies to BME and our client |
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Mid-semester Powerpoint Presentation (in Powerpoint) (Oct 20 2006, 152 kb) |
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Product Design Specification (Oct 24 2006, 13 kb) |
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Mid-semester Report (Oct 24 2006, 120 kb) |
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Project Poster (Dec 7 2006, 768 kb) |
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Final Report (Dec 15 2006, 386 kb) |
