Device Design competitions:

Picture from Blog

Device companies often try to fulfill a need in the market. For example if the need in the market is irregular heartbeat then the companies are tempted to create pacemakers in collaboration with doctors which enable them to create devices that would regulate that heartbeat electronically. However, last year MDDI online came up with a Dare to Dream contest at the link below. Here the practicality or financial numbers were not considered but rather the requirement was to come up with a device that would serve a purpose.

There were several entries that were judged to be really useful.

Third place: This was a device that was a Cerebrospinal fluid pressure regulator. This was created by Bob Paddock who had a very simple design as shown in the picture above. It did not have to be very practical but it had to have the components that were plausible. In Bob’s case there was a personal story since his wife had committed suicide from the pain of leaky Cerebrospinal fluid. This would almost be possible depending on whether there is big enough market for such devices that would correctly diagnose a bad continuous headache.

Second place: Myosense, a tape to collect data on the muscle movement and record that data to enable movement disorders. Again hopefully, there is a big enough market for this but this could have potential utility for a small group of people.

First place: This was an smart phone app that measures the heart activity around the clock. There have been several startups that have targeted this area, from wrist monitors to those that measure the heart with an attachment on the chest, near the heart. It would be interesting to see which of those devices are used every day.

Competitions like this encourage a lot of thought and target need. These are great to determine the market need, though they need to be balanced with seeing the cost impact. For example, you could wear a heart monitor if you are likely to have heart attacks or are in the category that has a potential to develop one, but it will be interesting to see how many people benefit from such devices. It is also worth asking that if you are such a patient, will you trust your cell phone, or would you be more comfortable using a device that has been FDA approved for your security. However, FDA is deregulating several devices as this article discusses in greater detail.


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