Rotational Balance Coupling Elements for One-Handed Fine Motor Skill Rehabilitation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Individuals with impaired fine motor skills face challenges in performing daily activities due to weakness in their wrists and hands, and existing therapeutic activities often require the use of both hands simultaneously, lacking tools that facilitate one-handed operations.
Innovation Solution
A system of coupling elements designed to be freely standing on a surface, allowing for one-handed intercoupling and decoupling, featuring a configuration with a slot and a central opening for secure engagement, ensuring rotational balance to maintain stability during use.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If existing therapeutic activities are used, then fine motor skill rehabilitation is provided, but both hands must be used simultaneously which limits therapeutic effectiveness for one-handed operation
Solution Approach 1:
The toy is divided into multiple separable coupling elements that can be individually manipulated. Each element can be independently picked up, coupled, and decoupled, enabling one-handed operation while maintaining therapeutic value for fine motor skill development
Solution Approach 2:
The coupling elements are designed to nest within each other through openings and body portions, allowing one element to be inserted into another. This nesting mechanism enables stable stacking and chaining operations that can be performed with one hand, addressing both ease of operation and therapeutic effectiveness
2Stability of the object's composition
If coupling elements are designed for secure engagement, then stability is improved, but complexity of the coupling mechanism increases
Solution Approach 1:
The coupling elements are designed with universal features - each element has an opening and body portion that can interact with any other element of the same design. This universality allows simple repeated coupling actions to create stable chains and stacks of varying lengths, achieving stability without increasing mechanical complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The coupling mechanism is designed to be self-locking through the interaction of the opening and body portion geometry. Once coupled, the elements maintain their connection through their own structural features without requiring additional locking mechanisms or complex fastening systems
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables individuals to improve fine motor skills by serially coupling and decoupling elements with one hand, enhancing dexterity and independence in performing tasks.
Implementation Method 1
said coupling element is rotationally balanced with respect to a corresponding substantially vertically oriented center line to ensure that the base, when said coupling element is suspended, will be assured of being at a bottom of said suspended coupling element
Data Source
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AI summary
A coupling element for facilitating fine motor skill improvement, comprises an upper body portion through which a raising force is transmittable; a lower body portion by which another coupling element is able to be suspended therefrom and which is configured with a base to assist the coupling element to be maintained in an upright position when the base is in contact with a horizontal underlying surface; and an opening delimited by at least a region of the upper body portion or lower body portion and into which a body portion of the another coupling element comprising the upper body portion, lower body portion, and opening is introducible, wherein the coupling element is rotationally balanced with respect to a corresponding substantially vertically oriented center line to ensure that the base, when the coupling element is suspended, will be assured of being at a bottom of the suspended coupling element even it was initially at an acute angle with respect to the underlying surface, due to a subsequent rotation of the suspended coupling element about its center of mass, to facilitate a one-handed intercoupling or decoupling operation with respect to the another coupling element.