KNEET

Hi readers,

This week has been very intense for everyone !

Our dear business explored the differents places where we thought we may sell the product. However, in china, neither pharmacy or hospital sell these products, but we found after disscussions with the Chineses, which way is the more relevant. Also today, Ilaria is meeting sportsmen and women to introduce them the product and get feedbacks.

On the PCB/hardware advancement, we’ve never been so close to have everythings working out. Also we had the luck to get the best welcome possible from Jordi Montaner, Innovation Engineer @ K-Tech ! All the staff there made everything possible to help and receive us awesomely.

Our designer has been working with for a week now, and at the end of the day, the final version will see the daylight.

Almost every module is ready, now we just need to assemble.

Looking forward to show the KNEET

Basile

Dear followers,

The adventure in China has started!

Already a week that we are working together. Time goes so fast when you are involved by your project.

Our engineers are working hard to finalize and test the electronical part to make things correctly work.

On his side, our designer is developing the knee brace in collaboration with K-Tech. He has found by himself this company from Switzerland and convince them to help us with the developing process. And all this for free!

The App, which is our added value is also going to be carry out.

Regarding the business part, we learn every day about Chinese culture and habits. We try to adapt our product as possible to match with Chinese traditions and uses. The financial estimations are going much better than on the Swiss market due to the number of citizens.

As you well understood, all this is a lot of work, an intense experience. But we have a lot of fun together, sharing ideas with Chinese, sometimes disappointing between us and of course enjoying the Chinese food and landscape.

Yesterday was our day-off and we decided to get in an electronical market to find some components for our device also to impregnate the Chinese technology which inspire our creativity.

Looking forward to write you soon,

Best,

Ilaria Bassi

For the Fogteam

Dear readers,

The Kneet team is well arrived in China. A lot of work has already been accomplished at the x.factory with the help of the wonderful Seeed Studio team. The app is slowly but surely taking shape, and we soon will be able to see a live preview of an exercise accomplished with the Kneet device.

Yesterday, some of us visited K-Tek, a 3D knitting company around Dongguan, 150km of Shenzhen. We discussed with them about an offer for the production of the Knee brace and it’s looking like the company is really interested working with us ! Two prototypes will be produced, one that stays pretty simple and based on our model and another one, that has already produces in collaboration with the MIT.

Apart from these exciting news, all students and teachers being part of the CHIC adventure are pleased being able to discover a new culture and to collaborate with people in Shenzhen !

More coming soon, stay updated !

Hello,

Last week was a busy one. We managed to make the first connection between the application and the PCB. Moreover, the connection between the PCB and the brace was decided to be with magnet and spring pin. The second PCB prototype is finished and will be ordered soon.

We still have a lot of work to do, but the results are encouraging.

Below a picture with the design idea and the second PCB version.

Good evening.

Jessica

Dear followers,

China journey is approaching. We are all in an exciting movement even if we cannot believe that it will happen. This week we received a lot of information about roommate and how to get the Chinese visa. All this information reminds us that the adventure is coming!

Regarding the improvement of the business part, we are looking for sponsors for our device support. In fact, it would be very practical to already have it and focused on the technical part.

However, we ask some companies for sponsoring, nothing has worked. That do not mean that we give up, even if it is very complicated to obtain something since the delay. If you know someone who can help, thanks to tell us !

Hope all your project are doing well,

See you soon!

Today we managed to have both the microtechnician and the electronician working to optimize and apply on MSP430 the data reading as well as the Bluetooth ! As the MS5 is coming soon, and there is a lot of code to manage, we want it as clean as possible !

#teamFog !

Hi everyone,

We are a few days away from our first prototype!

By the end of May, we want to perform the most basic functions as a user would: from log in, to perform an exercise, monitor it, and send the data on our server.

As everyone has tasks in cooperation with the other members, we need and needed to define properly what we want and how, to be sure that we’re all on the same page! This prototype will help us to define which correction we should apply, and we hope, a solid foundation for the future.

See you soon for the demo !

Dear all,

This week we manage to make the first connection between our device and a smart phone. There are still a lot of works to do for the Bluetooth communication on the microcontroller and on the smart phone app.

Moreover, we are working on the data processing between the sensor and the microcontroller.

I wish you all a nice day.

Jessica

Dear followers,

In these last days, we go on improving our project. Our designer Fabien is still test and think to a comfortable and desirable solution for sportsman in rehabilitation after a knee issue (LCA intervention). Alongside, our engineers Jessica and Basile are testing and building the electronical and technical part of the device. We do not forget the work done by our software and user experience engineers, Benoît and Jérémy, who are doing all the best to create the main value of our solution that is the App.

In fact, as you already know, we are in a differentiation strategy to have a competitive advantage on our competitors. To follow this last objective of differentiation strategy, I am working on the business model to segment the right target. We have all together identify two personas who are the sportsman in rehabilitation and physiotherapists to suggest them a facilitating solution for their routine. Furthermore, we have also elaborated a financial plan to keep in mind our costs and to organise the spending.

Regarding next week, we plan to manage the MS4, our last meeting with all our coaches and coordinator. The expectations of MS4 are very clear for us due to our coordinator Cédric who gave us very useful feedback and advices. We will try to cover the different subjects and each member will explain the job done by someone else. This exercise will allow us to practice peaching the different part of the job done to anyone. And it also let us the opportunity to explain to someone else in a simple manner the essential elements.

The other challenge of this week will be to find an appropriate name for our project. We will also elaborate a peach to explain all the concept in less than 2 minutes.

As you can see, a lot of work has already been done by all of us, but the road to China steal have a long journey and we have to work hard to continue to improve and concretise our project.

We would like to take advantage to Easter time to thanks all the person supporting us during this amazing adventure be our coordinator Cédric Junillon, be our coaches and mentors and of course all the people around that are supplying us and still encourage and believe in FOG TEAM.

Wishing you a happy Easter!

See you soon 😉

Ilaria

Hello everyone,

This week we managed to interact with sensors. We simulated the detection of a leg flection.
Moreover, the first PCB prototype has been made and we are trying to program the microcontroller.
Finally, we got our server.
For the following weeks, we have to find a way to make the electric connexions between the sensor and the PCB through the textile.

Jessica

Hello everyone,

Last week during our meeting we decided to define and focus our work with more precision. We started by asking again ourselves about the real goal of our project. Who are the real target customers and users, which is the real value proposition and who are our competitors. It was really necessary for us if we would continue to develop our project through a relevant way.

As a reminder, the following text explain the topic in which we will evolve with our project.

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear is the most common ligament injury of the knee, with 200,000 cases operated / year in the United States. It occurs most often in the patient involved in a regular sports activity, before the age of 25 years.

Every year in Switzerland, 10,000 to 12,000 people suffer from a knee injury involving an ACL lesion. Amongst these injuries, 73% are caused by sport (mainly skiing and football).

More than a third of the athletes are unable to restart their sport at the same level and almost a fifth will suffer a new accident during this recovery.

Quality rehabilitation for a return to sport by limiting the risk of recurrence requires good collaboration between surgeon, physiotherapist and patient: supervision and regular monitoring of patient progress. Recovery takes months. However, flexibility decreases with time. If the patient feels mentored by a team and sees their progress, positive feedback is established. A rehabilitation process should be specific to the targeted sport.

Our project try to offer a product for sportsman in a rehab process at home after an ACL surgery. This product should assist, motivate them to do their exercises, give them a feedback and in parallel data for the physiotherapist.

It occurs there is a gap during the phase II about assisting and monitoring the patient at home during the rehab timeline (see picture above).

Thus, we are focused to develop an attractive product for sportsman that can fill this gap. We are looking for inspiration in sportswear trends and the app is thought by proposing a kind of gamification using the competitive spirit of the sportsman (challenge, rewards, etc…).

For now the project is materialized through a kind of “smart knee brace” made of compression knitting with integrated sensors and an electronic part removable.

Next week we will be able to post a picture of our prototype.

Best,

Fabien

Dear readers,

Last week we had the MS3. That was a good occasion to receive some feedbacks about our project from our supervisors.

Afterwards, we had a meeting to analyse that feedback to consequently reinforce our project.

Our designer is doing a great job and the design of the knee brace becomes more precisely every day.

We are also working hard on the application. We are continuing the mockups and start to define precisely the communication protocol between the app and the server.

Furthermore, we also received an access to a HEIG server and we’ll be soon able to put our first API version online!

More coming soon from FogTeam HEIG 😉

Hello everyone,

The last week we started to work on the prototype of our device. It is a good new for our team to materialize our progression.

For now, we have decided to develop a kind of leggings with integrated sensors which will capture the movements of exercises during a rehab session.

This device is proposed for rehab after an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) surgery. The main goal is to motivate the patient by assisting him during the exercises through a specific app.

More details will be given in the next posts.

Best.

The last few weeks were tough for the Fogs.

We had a really short time between the MS1 and MS2 ! Indeed we had multiple iterations of the concept, but after an interview with the Dr Julien Favre, specialist on biomechanics, we decided to go for a device able to measure specific parameters of the gait, outside a lab.

We spent the week end working on this idea, but the more we worked on, the less applications and possibilities we had. The medical field has ton of society working on the gait, and the fragility of our idea could have led us in the wall.

Therefore, on Sunday afternoon, after a long discussion among the teammates, we rollback for a device closer of the original concept. We finally decided to help the patient during his rehabilitation process after an ACL surgery, and gave up the idea of a device really helpful for the doctors.

All the workshop we have done have been very helpful, bringing themes and questions as a process thinking, which does help a lot to create and design a product.

We had the luck to finally meet the other teams, and got feedback from them and from the amazing guests such as Dr John Fass, from the Royal College of London, who brought us a new vision on the design and its possible consequences.

Can’t wait to start this project !

As we just decided which opportunity space we’re gonna work on, we met a surgeon specialist of the knee, Dr Martin working at CHUV. Indeed we decided we’re gonna work on the following of the leg after injuries and specially when an operation is required. We had plenty of suppositions about which datas could be pertinent for the patient and the professionals. However, we had a few wrong assumptions, and fortunately we have been able to rectify before we went too far in a what would have been, an useless process. Long story short, there is an interest in knowing how and how much the weight is distributed on the feet, plus checking and monitoring when the maximum strenght autorized is used on the leg. Knowing these parameters, allow to inform the patient and his medical carer,  when the position is wrong and then prevent injuries, helping recovering.

Today, we had the opportunity to meet each other and share all our ideas and issues for the milestone 1.

In this sunny day, we also find our team name “FogTeam” based on the weather reputation of Yverdon.

We are ready to play ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !