Drawing Blood

First off, let me clarify that I have been posting with less frequency lately not because I see no problems with the world, but because my "capstone" (read: Senior) design project is the development of a new technology for prosthetic ankles, and it is a time suck. However, today I find myself on the train, with some time to kill.

My son goes to the hospital with regularity and thus so do I. One of the things he needs to get done frequently is have his blood drawn so that they can run tests. Being the small boy that he is, the nurses can have difficulty finding a vein. This leads them to poke him several times (heartbreaking), and when that doesn't work, they end up calling a "drawing blood" specialist. Keep in mind this isn't a backwater hospital with untrained people, this is Children's Hospital Boston, which I believe is ranked as the 2^nd best Children's hospital in the country.

I don't know enough about the fine mechanics of drawing blood to be able to redesign it here, but the procedure of "tying-off" one's arm in order to get a vein to show seems barbaric. If there is currently a better design out there, why is it not being used by the nurses at Children's Boston?

If there is a device out there (which I am not sure of), I imagine the reason it does not get widespread use is that it has too much visible technology or is too intimidating to use properly. What is needed is a device that looks simple (even if the behind the scene technology is complex), has a short learning curve, and takes the "art" out of the science of drawing blood.

Chris Loughnane

Philips headphones

	I recently lost my old pair of headphones that I used to work out and commute with. I was not about to spend a whole lot of time replacing them, so when I saw a few pairs of them at my local CVS, I figured I would just pick up a pair. As it turned out, I could not have chosen a better set if I tried. I have been using the behind-the-head variety of headphone and there are a few things that have bothered me. I will list philips solutions tothese problems as well as features I didn't even know I wanted The behind the head band is too stiff. This peeves me in two circumstances. First, when I slide one headphone off of my ear and have I rest below my ear so that I can answer the phone, the stiffness results in the headphone wanting to spring back up, this applying uncomfortable pressure to the underside of my ear. Second, after wearing them for a while they can cause a headache from the constant pressure. (initially I just thought it was my bad luck that I had an enormous head, but my diminiutive wife agreed with me) The edges of the foam pads that cover each speaker are captured so that they will not wear and rupture. This was a big problem with my old pair as after a while one could slide the foam right off. The headphone wire is protected by a braided fabric sheath. This likely has little if any effect to the performance, but it looks stronger, and that matters. There is a supplementary strain relief cord. Again, this might have a marginal benefit, but u feel much more comfortable when I accidentally drop my MP3 player knowing that there is a separate cable ready to take that force. So that's about it right now. I will update this later with somE stock photos, but I am on my blackberry on the train and I have got a 15 degree 2 mile bike ride ahead of me... Time to bundle up -Chris Loughnane

Audio reader

	I am an engineering student set to graduate in may. This being my last semester, I have several slots open for any elective I want to take. Some of my friends chose to take nothing clases such as drawing 101 or CAD (which they already know). This is perfectly reasonable seeing as we all have our "captone" projects consuming any free time we thought we had. I however have recently become intrigued with design research and decided to take an ethnography class as well as a class on sociological statistics. So how is it going so far? Well... I'm only in week two and the amoun t of reading material is a shock to my system. I am reading about 150 to 200 pages a week and it is a real struggle. It isn't that the material is hard or boring (quite the opposite), its that between capstone, my other classes, my family, sleeping, etc. It is hard to find time to sit down and read for an hour or two. Now I finally get to my solution... I envision a handheld device that can scan text, convert it to readable text, and have a simulated voice concert that text to audio. This way, you could have any material in a print medium converted to a track that you can listen to while you commute, work out, excercise, etc. I know the technology exists to make this happen, it is just a matter of combining them into a usable product. Perhaps an attachment to the ipod? Ps... I wrote this on my blackberry so please forgive any typos -Chris Loughnane

Wipe-Free Glasses

I wear glasses about 90% of the time. They are comfortable, and I like the flexibility of being able to take them off when I read. The problem I get is dust. Over the course of the day, little bits of dust get on my glasses, at some point, the dust has accumulated enough to affect (minutely, but noticeable nonetheless) my vision clarity. To get rid of the dust I typically wipe it off on my shirt. The problem with this is that some shirt materials wipe better than others, you may have touched your shirt with your fingers, in which case the oil from your hands which is invisible on the shirt, will become visible on the glasses. Once there is a smudge from oil on your glasses, its game over until you get to go to the restroom and wash them off with water.

Below are some solutions to this problem, and my explanation why they aren't good enough.

• Use Contacts
  
  • When I wake up in the morning (especially after I stay up late, which I do OFTEN), it can be slightly painful to put in contacts, as my eyes have not had sufficient time to "wake up"
    
• Get Lasik®
  
  • I have always been a little hesitant about Lasik®, and it did not get better the other day. I am taking a Musculoskeletal Biomechanics course at Northeastern University, and the professor (a proud glasses patron himself) has done research on the eye, and is thus familiar with Lasik®. He told us that Lasik is not based on any biological sort of equation. It is an art, not a science. As such, its replicability is lower than it could be. In light of this information, my hesitancy regarding Lasik® has turned into a firm opposition
    
• Carry around a special cloth that I use to wipe my glasses.
  
  • There may be some people whom can handle this, but it is not for me. I want a design that does not require me to take anything extra with me.
    

One idea I have is to use some sort of electrostatic property to make the glasses themselves repel dust. If there is no dust, there will be no wiping. If there is no wiping, there will be significantly less smudges and consistently better clarity.

-Chris Loughnane