Prototype of the low-cost self-stabilising spoon for people with Parkinson’s – an innovation of APU’s mechatronic engineering undergraduates and APCoRE inventors.
THE World Health Organisation recently disclosed that disability and death due to Parkinson’s Disease have been increasing faster than any other neurological disorder globally. The report also stated that the prevalence of Parkinson’s has doubled in the past 25 years.
The most common and visible symptoms of Parkinson’s are tremors or shaking, which hinders patients’ eating routines as they cannot hold cutlery with a steady hand.
Knowing this, three Mechatronic Engineering undergraduates from Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU) created a “low-cost self-stabilising spoon” for people with Parkinson’s.
This healthtech invention that serves patients who can’t afford to buy high-priced products with similar functions earned the team Tremor X from the Asia Pacific Centre of Robotics Engineering (APCoRE) of the APU School of Engineering a merit award at the recent 21st Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards 2022 in Islamabad, where they competed with 200 other submissions from the Asia Pacific region.
Prior to Islamabad, Tremor X won the student tertiary category at the national-level MSC Malaysia APICTA 2022 Awards, hence they represented the country at the international level.
Students Wong Heng Ying and Ang Jia Ze from Tremor X attended the APICTA Awards in Islamabad, together with their mentors – lecturer Vickneswari Durairajah and senior lecturer Suresh Gobee of the School of Engineering. The third team member Jamila Njeri Mathu could not make the trip.
Tremor X’s self-stabilising spoon for people with Parkinson’s features an inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor, motors, a control unit with Arduino Nano and a Bluetooth module.
(From left) Suresh, Wong, Vickneswari and Ang with the self-stabilising spoon, a product of APU mechatronic engineering which received a merit award at the 21st Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) Awards 2022 in Islamabad.
“Once the spoon is switched on, the IMU measures the tremor values at the handle and sends the info to the mobile application via Bluetooth,” Ang explains.
“These additional features will allow for collecting and storing tremor data that tells doctors when a patient’s tremors have worsened.
“At the same time, the spoon’s orientation is measured by the IMU and sent to the Arduino for pre-processing. The data is filtered and the Arduino then controls the servo motors and rotates them accordingly to counteract the tilt or tremor – hence aiding people with Parkinson’s to eat on their own.”
The team intends to go for mass production to bring down the price of their spoon. By reducing inequalities in a society especially when it involves people living with disabilities, on top of differences in social economic status, their invention is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goal #3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
“After all, this is a sustainable innovation to better the lives of a marginalised group,” added Ang.
Vickneswari commented: “The team’s biggest aim is to develop tech-infused cutlery that can benefit people with Parkinson’s, as well as their family members, caretakers, and healthcare personnel.
“We aspire to create a better living experience for people who are unserved and underserved, and provide the most affordable device across the globe, especially to low-income and mid-income countries.”
The next step is to obtain funding from NGO and CRS-based bodies for the prototype, and to manufacture and commercialise the product.
“Our mechatronics engineering students have applied their knowledge and skills obtained via their curriculum onto medical mechatronics,” says APU chief innovation and enterprise officer Prof Ir Eur Ing Ts Dr Vinesh Thiruchelvam.
“The students’ innovation produced under the supervision of expert academicians is a fusion of electronics, electrical and mechanical engineering.
“The use of mechatronics has allowed for extreme ‘miniaturisation’ which empowers sensing and monitoring – leading to the use of less invasive technology while having a profound impact on people with Parkinson’s.
“I am proud of what the team achieved at APICTA,” says Prof Vinesh.
APCoRE was jointly designed and commissioned in 2013 by Prof Vinesh and Suresh Gobee for students to put theory into practice.
