Week 3

This week we clarified our understanding of the difference between strategies and concepts, and finished off brainstorming different strategies for our project. We ended up with ~30 ideas for strategies, and then chose the top three ideas and brainstormed the pros and cons of those strategies. The top three strategies were tension, compression, and resistance.

Strategies List

Once we had selected our strategies, we brainstormed concepts for each of those strategies. (We had already inadvertently brainstormed several concepts last week.) Once again, we were asked to select the top 3 concepts per strategy (so 9 concepts total), and consider the pros and cons of each. To do this, each team member rated the concepts individually. We then discussed our ratings as a group and argued for why or why not a concept should be considered. Shown below is an example of how this process was completed.

Example of concept ideas for Resistance strategy.

Excerpt from choosing a concept within the Resistance strategy. The thee concepts on the right were chosen as the winners.

The following pictures show examples of the 9 concepts that were selected.

Magnetic joints

Velcro suit

Velcro suit

Tight-fit joints

Elastic bands/Elastic fabric

Compression circular tubing

Pulley system

Elastic fabric

Once we had our 9 concepts, we put them into two decision matrices: one for long-term use and one for short-term use. (Previously in our project we defined "short-term" to be anywhere between 30 minutes-1 hour and "long-term" to be 3 hours or longer.) The categories for the matrices were identical, but the weights given to each category were different. For example, we decided that comfort was of lower priority for short-term use than for long-term use.
We rated each category on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the best and 1 being the worst.

Long duration decision matrix

Short duration decision matrix

Based on both decision matrices, we were able to rule out five ideas automatically. The remaining four were somewhat close in score, and, due to the nature of our project, may eventually be incorporated. (We believe it would be both beneficial and feasible to incorporate multiple concepts as some might be more effective on different parts of the body.)
The elastic bands scored the highest in both decision matrices, and will thus be chosen as our single concept that we will generate modules for (starting next week).