Module 3 Activity Research

Weekly Activity Template

Gabriela Gonzalez

Project 3

Module 3

In the following sections, you can see my progress and the role I played in developing the smart resistance band, along with the weekly activities and research I completed to help my group arrive at our final design.

Activity 1: My Research

For my activity 1, I played around with the measurements and how we are going to make our resistance band. Whether it was just going to be a single loop around like an infinity, or if it was going to be open and you could adjust it. This was the width of the band. It is a little bit thick. I did let my other group members know that we should make it a little thicker because it made it hard to move if it was too too thick. This was the version I made that was opened so then the user could adjust it depending on their needs and preferred comfort. These are the resistance bands I plan to use, which I’ve already had at home for some time. Since they come in different strength levels, they’re a good reference for testing and experimentation. I plan to play around with them to explore different possibilities, especially because we were considering using a similar type of material for our own resistance band design. Since the resistant bands are in a loop, I decided to cut two of them so I could glue them together. While gluing the pieces together, I didn’t realize how challenging it would be to get them to properly stick. I applied glue along the edges and then pressed them together, but even after reinforcing the seams, the glue wouldn’t hold consistently. This may have been due to the plasticky material, but it made the process much more time-consuming than expected. I also had to wait for each section to fully dry before moving on, since touching it too soon would pull apart the glue that hadn’t set yet, making the whole process slow and repetitive. This is what it looked like when I had glued them together, but it was still just a flat straight line. It was not a loop. I don't know if it's on. It looks like, come on. Being pumped in. And this is what it looked like after I added more glue, and it definitely holded the air better inside. Then after, I tried gluing the two ends together to make the loop and tried seeing what would happen when I put air into it. This was my final product, and what did it look like with blown air into it? After letting my group members know that I personally don't think we should use this type of material for our final design because it doesn't stay glued and every time I tried moving it or trying to use it like a resistance band or just even putting it on, glue would come off and then expose a little air pocket and therefore we came to the conclusion that we are not going to use this type of resistance band and we had to use better glue.

Activity 2: My Research

This was the original template I used to create the air pressure that went along with our resistance band. But after talking about it, we realized we didn't like the dial on it. It was very unnecessary and also didn't say very much to the user. And also, for it to work, we had to move the dial around. So therefore, it was not functional and it wouldn't tell the user what pressure they were at, whether it was low, medium, or high. After removing the dial, I decided to keep the wording at the bottom to let the user know what pressure level they were at, but I had a hard time getting it to display properly. It wouldn’t appear on the screen, which led to a lot of troubleshooting. After testing different possibilities, I realized the text was still linked to the dial, which is why it wasn’t working once the dial was removed. Because of this, I realized I would likely need to create an entirely new design to make the pressure indicator function correctly. For our second page that would show users their progress through the week, this is what it originally looked like, but I obviously didn't want each month, I wanted each day of the week. So this is what it looks like after I changed a few things. I had to rename a couple of the elements and I spaced them out in a way that users wouldn't get mixed up on what day of the week it was and just try to make it as visually appealing. I did have trouble having the the chart change or show the progress. But since we then realized this page isn't as important as showing the pressure, I stopped working on it. And this was our final prototype that Julie helped with. And the new design that showed the high, medium, and low so users can see what level they were at. And this showed exactly what we wanted it to show using very simple graphics. Therefore, this was our final prototype.

Additional Research or Workshops

For our research, I did some research on different types of fabric that we could possibly use for the outer fabric of our resistance band, and this is what I found. I also did some research on what was the best way to close our resistance band, whether it was a zipper, Velcro, or some other fastener. And after doing this research, I talked about my finding with my other team members and I told them what fabrics not to use and which ones I think we could possibly use and the same for the fastener. This was the website that I used to help find all my information about each material. It was very descriptive and gave me many different types of materials, even ones I didn't even know existed. And it also sometimes included, depending on the fabric, which ones would be best for clothing or Just simply best for people to use. This website helped me to find which fasteners we could possibly use, and I realized how many different ones there were. It also talked about how depending on the user, it might be difficult for them to use. For example, if we decided to use a button, it may be hard for people with arthritis to use. So it was very interesting to see all that information, and it was very helpful.

Project 2

Project 3 Final Prototype

Our Semi-Functional Smart Resistance Band Project Prototype.

This is our final resistance band prototype. It is semi-functional, as we ran into some challenges connecting it to ProtoPie. We tested the connection on two different computers, but it still would not work as expected. While the physical resistance band functions on its own and the ProtoPie prototype also works independently, we were unable to fully connect the two. Because of these technical limitations, this represents our final version of the project.
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