Grading Scheme

The grading scheme for the course, as well as links to specific requirements for each assignment/deliverable and evaluation sheets, are given in the table below. Due dates for each assignment/deliverable can be found on the course Calendar. Please note:

There is a 25% penalty per day for any late submissions. "Late" means handed in after the deadline. Thus, if the deadline is 5pm and you hand in an assignment at 5:01pm, you will be penalized. The penalties are cumulative. If an assignment is due at 5pm on Monday and you hand it in at 5:01pm on Tuesday (two days late), your grade will be (1-25%)^2 of the grade you would have received had you turned it in on time.

Some assignments are "Individual" and team members are individually responsible for completing the assignment on time and will receive an individual grade. Many assignments are "Team" assignments and a single deliverable is handed in by the team. In most cases, all team members will receive the same grade on these assignments. However, the course staff reserves the right to "break up" any group's work and grade individually. This will be done if we feel the work or work quality has not been evenly distributed between group members.

The evaluation sheets provide a sense of what we are looking for with each deliverable. You should keep in mind, though, that the evaluation is not strictly binary. In other words, just because you have "checked off" each component described in the evaluation sheet does not ensure that you will receive a perfect score.

Below is the points breakdown for all assignments/deliverables for the course, sorted chronologically:

* Grades for these will be the average of the TA and Instructor grades; peer review grades will be used to provide feedback.
** Evaluation Sheets are subject to minor changes.

Featured Project

Problem:

Thanks to modern technology, it is easy to encounter a wide variety of wearable fitness devices such as Fitbit and Apple Watch in the market. Such devices are designed for average consumers who wish to track their lifestyle by counting steps or measuring heartbeats. However, it is rare to find a product for the actual patients who require both the real-time monitoring of a wearable device and the hard protection of a brace.

Personally, one of our teammates ruptured his front knee ACL and received reconstruction surgery a few years ago. After ACL surgery, it is common to wear a knee brace for about two to three months for protection from outside impacts, fast recovery, and restriction of movement. For a patient who is situated in rehabilitation after surgery, knee protection is an imperative recovery stage, but is often overlooked. One cannot deny that such a brace is also cumbersome to put on in the first place.

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Solution:

Our group aims to make a wearable device for people who require a knee brace by adding a health monitoring system onto an existing knee brace. The fundamental purpose is to protect the knee, but by adding a monitoring system we want to provide data and a platform for both doctor and patients so they can easily check the current status/progress of the injury.

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Audience:

1) Average person with leg problems

2) Athletes with leg injuries

3) Elderly people with discomforts

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Equipment:

Temperature sensors : perhaps in the form of electrodes, they will be used to measure the temperature of the swelling of the knee, which will indicate if recovery is going smoothly.

Pressure sensors : they will be calibrated such that a certain threshold of force must be applied by the brace to the leg. A snug fit is required for the brace to fulfill its job.

EMG circuit : we plan on constructing an EMG circuit based on op-amps, resistors, and capacitors. This will be the circuit that is intended for doctors, as it will detect muscle movement.

Development board: our main board will transmit the data from each of the sensors to a mobile interface via. Bluetooth. The user will be notified when the pressure sensors are not tight enough. For our purposes, the battery on the development will suffice, and we will not need additional dry cells.

The data will be transmitted to a mobile system, where it would also remind the user to wear the brace if taken off. To make sure the brace has a secure enough fit, pressure sensors will be calibrated to determine accordingly. We want to emphasize the hardware circuits that will be supplemented onto the leg brace.

We want to emphasize on the hardware circuit portion this brace contains. We have tested the temperature and pressure resistors on a breadboard by soldering them to resistors, and confirmed they work as intended by checking with a multimeter.

Project Videos

Recovery-Monitoring Knee Brace

Item	Team / Individual Score	Points	Evaluation Sheet**
Initial Post	Individual	5
Lab Notebook	Individual	50	PDF
Lab Safety Training	Individual	Lab Access
CAD Assignment	Individual	10	PDF
Soldering Assignment	Individual	10
Request for Approval	Team	5
Weekly TA Meetings
Project Proposal	Team	25	PDF
Team Contract	Team	10
Design Document Requirements and Verification	Team	40	PDF
Design Review *	Team	20	PDF
Board Review
Individual Progress Report	Individual	25
Mock Demo	Individual	5
Mock Presentation	Individual	5
Final Demo *	Team	150	PDF
Final Presentation *	Individual	50	PDF
Final Report: Technical	Team	30	PDF
Final Report: English/Format	Team	20	PDF
Checkout			PDF
Contract Fulfillment	Team	20
Continuing your project		Priceless

Grading Scheme

Recovery-Monitoring Knee Brace

Featured Project

Project Videos