MIT Little Devices Lab

Medical maker technologies for the developing world

Overview

The Little Devices Lab, located within MIT’s International Design Center, prototypes affordable, versatile and easily reconfigurable technologies to equip those at the frontline. I worked as a designer on a variety of projects aimed at providing healthcare workers in developing countries with the necessary tools to create their own solutions for their local communities.

Roles
As a researcher in the lab, I led the mechanical design for Ampli projects, software design for Adherio project, and joined as a co-designer for several assistive technology workshops we held.

Skills
Rapid Prototyping, Physical Computing, Processing, Rhino, Grasshopper
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Team
Lab members Hanna Khoury, Briana Lino, Emily Skilling, Lukas Kompstacher

AmpliRXDX

Many patients and healthcare providers are firsthand experts in the problems being faced at the front lines of disease. Often, they lack the tools or are not equipped with the technological skills to fabricate solutions for their problems. Outside of large institutions, there is little access to expensive lab equipment or manufacturing for medical supplies. AmpliRXDX is comprised of a diagnostic component (DX) and a pharmaceutical component (RX). The system is made of easy to use, modular 3D printed blocks that can be assembled, like Legos, to form a paperfluidic array that can quickly run reactions spanning diagnostics to drug creation.

I worked with a biochemist and mechanical engineer to make Ampli more portable, automated, and adaptable for a variety of environments.

Flat-packed Ampli kit

Ampli Kit

Remote locations with lack of lab facilities are where disease often strikes the hardest. I adapted the Ampli system into a portable, flat-packed kit that medical workers could fit in a briefcase, take in the field with them, and perform on-the-spot diagnostics. The pop-up design created entirely out of acrylic, polypropylene, and cardstock can be easily laser cut and 3D printed for minimal setup time.

The mechanical engineer and I also designed an origami inspired collecting wheel out of glass fiber paper and a motor salvaged from the minute hand of an everyday clock to collect the products of the chemical reactions generated from the Ampli blocks for later use.
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The kit has been displayed at exhibits organized by the Cooper Hewitt and Philadelphia Museum of Art and is in use by researchers in Cameroon and Nigeria.

Automation

I've also worked on augmenting the capabilities of the original Ampli system so that researchers could continuously run reactions without the need to always be monitoring. I designed and coded a modular two wheel system that snaps in with the rest of the Ampli and can detect changes in the reaction progression to correspondingly stop or start the flow of reagents. A sensing component of the feedback loop monitors color changes common in many chemical reactions.
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Kit for Ampli Bioreactor Auomation Wheels

Wheel CONSTRUCTION

The housing for the wheel components is made up of slotted acrylic components that can be assembled from a small case, without glue, in the field. The glass fibers attached to the origami wheels are precision etched to fold exactly when rotated, to bridge the paperfluidic array on Ampli blocks.

Ampli Bioreactors being tested in the Canary Islands

Space Adaptation

The lab is also sending the Ampli system up in the ISS to run a series of reactions on the unique ways a paperfluidic system might respond in a zero gravity environment. I've worked on adapting that system to those physical constraints. These include redesigning the fluid deposition process and ways to halt the reaction with easily coordinated block separation for analysis back on Earth.

Fair Trade Bio

When a disease strikes, often it is the personal data and samples from local residents that were hit the hardest that become essential in creating cures. Researchers in well funded labs use these specimens to publish high profile papers for their discoveries.
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The Fair Trade Bio vial gives credit to the people who contributed their samples often with great personal sacrifice, from trekking miles to a clinic to the pain caused by the disease, and communicates to researchers where the data for their work is coming from. I developed the visual design of the vial labels for display as a piece of speculative design.

Sample vial shown at the Cooper Hewitt’s Design with the 90% Exhibit

Adherio

Adherio is a two factor authentication process for healthcare professionals to verify patients are taking their scheduled medication. Patients deposit a urine sample each day which then results in differing patterns on the output pads depending on the reagents pre-embedded and the designed crossing of the fiber channels. The random generation of the absorbent fiber pattern makes the system difficult to cheat and an added incentive is given to patients that report their results each day. I worked on a system for the random generation and fabrication of Adherio patterns for ease of mass fabrication.

Rhino and Grasshopper

Previously, creating an Adherio test packet was a laborious process that involved manually drawing in Illustrator or other vector software. For busy nurses, that posed significant barriers to use.
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My first iterations in programmatically automating the process were developed in Rhino and Grasshopper, but I transitioned over to Processing so that healthcare workers can easily access the tools without prohibitively expensive licenses.

Rhino and Grasshopper iteration

processing

Now the user simply has to select the amount of input days needed and they are automatically generated vector PDFs of all the layers that can be swiftly laser cut and assembled.

Final Process