Introducing the "Sudden Impact" Series
For many, 2014 will be seen as the year that the wearable health market finally matured. For engineering and technology businesses, now is the time to not only start catering to this market, but to take an active role. With recent reports estimating that as many as 250 million wearable health devices will ship in the next five years, there is an opportunity for these businesses to lead the way; developing new solutions that help promote healthy living, reduce harm and even save lives. It's for this reason that we at element14 recently challenged our online community of over 260,000 design engineers to get involved in the sector, launching the "Sudden Impact" Wearable Design Challenge.
From idea to prototype
In this, we've tasked 12 participants from across the world to consider how wearable technology solutions can provide critical, real time insights to a user group that are in particular need - athletes. They each proposed some brilliant and unique devices that we're looking forward to seeing them develop. They are:
• Joshua Bayfield (U.K.) – Field Hockey – Wireless ECG heart rate monitor, forehead temperature sensor, leg injury and impact monitor and accelerometer-based alert system for fallen players
• Ravi Butani (India) – Football, Biking, Racing and Skiing – Vital health parameter monitoring system to measure for head, chest and spinal injury, ECG heart rate monitor and body temperature sensors
• Shubham Garg (India) – Football and Skiing – Cardiac arrest, internal bleeding and muscle fatigue monitors
• Austin Horning (U.S.) – High School Sports – Smartphone-connected system to measure blows to the head and track heart rates
• Md. Kamrul Hussain (Bangladesh) – Soccer, Football, Cricket and Basketball – Sensor system to track body temperature, head trauma, respiration and strains to the calf muscles
• Cosmin Iorga (U.S.) – Tennis – Foot, arm and head modules to track heart rate, body temperature, oxygen levels in the blood, respiratory rate, dehydration and exhaustion
• Dragan Knezevic (Serbia) – General Sports – Configurable helmet and uniform sensors to measure custom vitals
• Norbert Kovács (Hungary) – Biking – Smart clothes that log heart rate, body temperature, acceleration, speed and profile of trip
• Kas Lewis (Canada) – General Sports – Helmet to monitor for heat stroke, heart attacks and concussions
• Hendrik Lipka (Germany) – Soccer and Skiing – Heart rate monitor during training sessions and helmet-mounted impact monitor
• Robert Waters (U.S.) – General Sports – Heart rate monitor and respiratory belt transducer
• Douglas Wong (Canada) – Hockey – Stress and heart rate sensors and helmet-mounted trauma monitor
With the support of Analog Devices, Tektronix and Electrolube, we're supplying them with all the tools and equipment they could need to make their ideas a reality. These include an accelerometer, single-lead heart rate monitor, temperature sensor and advanced protection polymers. We're also providing a $500 budget to each participant for any additional parts and purchases that are needed. Our hope with the challenge is to inspire solutions that can one day be put to action on the fields and courts of schools and sports teams across the world.
From prototype to practice
However, for these to be used in a real world setting athletes need complete assurance that they can rely upon the data their device collects. After all, a single error in how the device captures data could ultimately have an impact on the athlete's performance or even health.
For this reason, the School of Computing, Creative Technology and Engineering at Leeds Beckett University will rigorously test each completed solution. They will be judged on how well they meet the requirements of four criteria: How effectively the device makes use of the components provided, how durable the device is in an athletic environment, whether it is simplistic enough for use by secondary school pupils and – most importantly – the quality of the critical diagnostic information that it can provide coaches, athletes and medical professionals.
The participants' will be uploading blogs, videos and photos as they progress their designs, sharing these on the dedicated Sudden Impact challenge page on the element14 Community.
Meanwhile, I will be exploring the questions and challenges in wearable device design that the finalists discover, as well as the issues affecting the fledgling wearable device market, in this Eureka blog series.
About the Author
Christian DeFeo is the e-supplier and innovation manager at Farnell element14, a global electronics distributor and online community of more than 260,000 design engineers and tech enthusiasts. Recently, he oversaw the Beyond the Phone challenge in which element14 members developed wirelessly powered medical devices. He is currently leading the Sudden Impact design competition.
