One step backward, two steps forward!

Following another busy week at team IDT, some key decisions have now been made that will support the team in striving towards their future objectives.

After discussions with or project adviser and other tutors, the team have now revised their project plan and have decided to drop the proposed idea of undertaking a Monte Carlo analysis procedure. This decision was made due to limited computational resources that may have resulted in major disruptions to the project timeline and ultimately hindered the success of the team. Although disappointing this decision now allows the team to distribute its resources more efficiently, with Campbell McFadden now supporting Ryan Cogan and Robert Peacock in developing biomechanical failure criteria and FEA modelling. Kyosuke Kobayashi will now focus his time in supporting Peter Sclare and Ueda Naoki in prototype fabrication and software development.

Other notable achievements this week included significant steps forward in our concept design process with 5 strong initial feedback device concepts being outlined, these will now be analysed in further detail by the team in order to decide which designs we would like to move forward with. Fabrication of electrical instrumentation also seen strong advances with live data now being fed to the computer, optimisation of this system as well as development of data filtration software will continue into this week. Significant progress was also made in expanding our understanding of the mechanisms behind what causes a concussion, key research papers have now been identified that will be critical in developing failure criteria.

Finally, the team achieved their first key deliverable on Thursday of this week, with a detailed statement of purpose and signed contract being forwarded to Dr. Andrew McLaren of the University of Strathclyde, this statement of purpose also included a detailed Gantt chart of the project timeline. This document can be found under the deliverables tab on our website!