Friday, October 21, 2016

Advanced First Aid Kit

  • Problem
    • Currently 911 emergency services have cases where they fail to find individuals who have placed emergency calls in time to save lives.
    • It is possible that even by the year 2021, emergency services will still be unable to find callers 1 out of 5 time.
    • This statistic is even worse on long wilderness trails or in rural areas.
    • Furthermore there are some situations where immediate aid could help to save an individual's life. However, few bystanders are trained to actually provide aid.

  • Possible solution
    • The solution requires three components:
      • Pulse sensor to help monitor a patient's current situation.
      • GPS to help emergency services find the patient.
      • A screen and database to relay information to the user on how to respond to different situations, for example how to provide CPR.
    • All three of these components can be mounted on a glove for ease of use.
      • The pulse sensor on the middle and fore fingers.
      • The screen, gps and four buttons will be located on the back of the hand.
    • The glove will take in information about the current situation by short easy to understand multiple choice questions and then relay information back to the user based on the situation they have described.
    • This glove works as part of an internet of things as it relays information between the user and emergency services.
    • Additional features include small, light and long lasting power source with the possibility of solar panels to allow the device to be recharged more easily in areas without the convenience of new batteries.  

  • Possible target markets
    • Schools and universities.
    • Hikers and other individuals who engage in outdoor activities that are in potentially isolated areas.
    • The homes of the elderly.

  • Systems diagram
    • Source:
      • Database containing information on how to react in emergencies.
      • GPS
    • Payloads:
      • Information on how to react.
      • Details on patient's location and situation to be sent to emergency services.
    • Distribution:
      • Screen on back of glove.
      • Wireless signal sent to emergency services.
    • Tools:
      • Glove
      • Pulse sensor
    • Control: option buttons on back of glove.

Problems in Healthcare

  • Emergency response time
    • 911 emergency services are not always able to locate the emergency.
    • Time to reach location can often be too long to provide first aid.
    • First response needed but not everyone is trained to provide help.
  • Healthcare in the home
    • Difficulty for individuals who are elderly or infirmed to live independently.
    • Hospice care & elderly home can often be prohibitively expensive or restrictive.
    • Individuals may be unable to call for help if home alone.
    • There is always the possibility of individuals mistaking pills and other prescriptions and facing hazardous or even deadly consequences.
  • Security risks of handling healthcare online
    • Cybersecurity concerns and breaches have become more prominent in the last years with the onset of new and numerous health monitoring apps.
    • “Internet-connected healthcare products are estimated to be worth $285 billion by 2020” - http://www.healthcarebusinesstech.com/issues-impacting-hospitals-2016/
  • Mental health
    • Stigmas attached to mental illness still prevail today and are often propagated by harmful media.
    • “In 2013, an estimated 43.8 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States had any mental illness (AMI) in the past year. This represents 18.5 percent of all adults in this country. The percentage of adults with AMI in 2013 was similar to the estimate in 2012. “ - SAMHSA Results from the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Mental Health Findings
    • Current solutions range from effective to appalling, including confining young mentally ill individuals to elderly homes or greyhound therapy, the practice of discharging seriously ill patients too soon and supplying them with a one way ticket out of town.
    • Furthermore the system can often lead individuals with poor mental health to be confined in jail. There are currently close to 10 times as many individuals behind bars as there are in state funded mental institutions. - National Alliance on Mental Illness, Treatment Advocacy Center.
  • Prohibitive cost of healthcare
Problems in Education
  • Standardized testing
    • Students can take up to 113 standardized tests by graduation.
    • Testing can  result in high stress for children, sometimes resulting in illness, tears, and throwing up during tests. In fact current regulation and guidelines now account for such disastrous situations.
    • Current teacher pay is sometimes tied to test results. This can sometimes negatively affect both teachers and students when the calculated predicted scores are either improbable or even impossible (ie above 100%).
    • This can incentivise fraud and cheating scandals as seen in Atlanta between 2009 and 2011.
    • Current standardized tests can often be misleading and fail to reflect actual ability.
  • Student debt
    • “Americans owe nearly $1.3 trillion in student loan debt, spread out among about 43 million borrowers. In fact, the average Class of 2016 graduate has $37,172 in student loan debt, up six percent from last year.” - https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/
  • Availability of education in areas of conflict
    • “Children’s educational attainment is particularly compromised by exposure to violence. Conflict-affected countries include over 20% of all children of primary school age, but account for around half of all out-of-school children of primary school age (UNESCO, 2011, 2013). The likelihood of young children dropping out of school is also significantly higher in conflict-affected countries than elsewhere in the world: only 65% of children in these countries attend the last primary school grade, in comparison to 86% across low-income countries.” -BARRIERS TO EDUCATION IN CONFLICT-AFFECTED COUNTRIES AND POLICY OPPORTUNITIES http://allinschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/OOSC-2014-Conflict-and-education-final.pdf
  • Lack of trained teaching staff
  • Difficulties with Charter schools and online schooling

On a side note check out these episodes of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (got a lot of ideas from them… and sources of information):


Possible Solutions

  • Advanced first aid kits
    • This is a solution that might address the emergency response problem.
    • The key idea is a first aid kit that will talk user through the basics of applying first aid.
    • Connected to emergency services in order to appropriately display an individual's location when needed.

  • Home and hospital automated pill dispensers
    • This is a solution that might address the issues with independant living for the elderly or infirmed as well as help cut down on the possibilities of individuals overdosing or missing out on prescribed medicine.
    • The key to this design is a dispenser that can hold a plethora of different pills and accurately dispense the correct number of each at the right time while drawing the attention of the user.
    • The machine should be able to connect with each patient's health care provider as to be able to update itself when prescriptions change as well as order new pills when supplies are low.

  • Educational E-Readers
    • This is a solution that might address the issues with online and home learning as well as, if adapted correctly, education in areas of conflict and refugee centers.
    • The key to this idea is a portable e-reader that is preprogrammed with the necessary teaching resources and exercises to provide a complete grade level education.
    • As a device that is dedicated to only education, it is free of the normal distractions that are common on personal computers (ie social media, video games, etc)
    • The device should be able to connect with others in the region to be able to accurately take user statistics (ie time used, subjects covered, general competency), as well as allow users to work together on projects and exercises. This will hopefully  
    • The product should be made of a durable material and given a solar panel for areas conflict and refugee camps. As the budget for such a device might be tight, it is possible that each community could be limited to only one e-reader. In these cases, hopefully a responsible adult could be trained to use the resources the device contains to properly teach educate all children in the immediate vicinity and possibly learn something themselves.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Homework 3: The System Diagram & Identifying the 5 system components
  1. Electric Light Bulb vs Philip Hue Bulb
    1. Electric Light Bulb
      1. Source: Power Outlet
      2. Distribution: Wire
      3. Package Payload: Electricity
      4. Tool: Light Bulb
      5. Control: Light Switch
    2. Philip Hue Bulb
      1. Source: Power Outlet
      2. Distribution:
        1. Power Outlet
        2. Bluetooth
      3. Package Payload:
        1. Electricity
        2. Commands
      4. Tool: Light Bulb
      5. Control:
        1. Light Switch
        2. Phone

  1. Self Driving Cars
    1. System Mapping
      1. Source:
        1. Electric Battery
        2. Car Engine
      2. Distribution
        1. Drive Train
        2. Internal Wiring
      3. Package Payload
        1. Torque(power)
        2. Information about vehicle surroundings
      4. Tool:
        1. Car (wheels, body,etc)
        2. Sensors to monitor vehicle surroundings
      5. Control
        1. Driving Wheel
        2. Some sort of User Interface
    2. If you have a choice between making very smart or somewhat less-dumb roadways, which would you choose & why?
      1. I would define a very smart roadway as one that requires little to no user input and involves a complicated system to monitor all vehicles at all times to prevent a build up in traffic or accidents.
      2. I would define a somewhat less-dumb roadway as one that allows for user control but makes it very difficult for each individual to mess up in any way.
      3. Personally I would choose to work towards making the roadways less-dumb as I enjoy the feeling of driving and controlling a car as well as it is a system that allows for greater user freedom.
      4. The very smart roadway might be safer, but should the control system fail the results would be much more disastrous as it would be difficult or even impossible for users to regain control of their vehicles in time to prevent an accident.

  1. Identify the Packaged Payload in (B). How do you make money if you’re Ford? How do you make money if you’re Google? Is the packaged payload the same?
      1. Ford would most likely focus efforts on making the most efficient and powerful car possible. The company makes money off of designing appealing cars that handle and run well.
        1. Primary Payload Package:
          1. Torque
          2. Information about how the car is running
      2. Google, as primarily a software company would probably focus less on the car itself and more on developing a powerful controls system that takes in the greatest possible amount of information about the vehicle's surroundings, making the car as automated and self-controlled as possible.
        1. Primary Payload: Information about the car’s surroundings