Timeline:

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Meeting Minutes:

IKROBO© first meeting was held in the boardroom of the School on May 14, 2013. The following members attended the meeting:

1. Rao Gorantla, Professor, Electronics Faculty
2. Chris Daniel, Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Faculty
3. Sandra Kudla, Professor, Biomedical Engineering Faculty
4. Philip Jarvis, Professor, Electronics Faculty
5. Lauren Fuentes, Professor, Electronics Faculty
6. Pravin Patel, Professor, Electronics Faculty

Rao Gorantla chaired the meeting and briefed the scope of the project which will be spread over three years starting from May 2013 to May 2016. A number of issues related to the project such as the objectives, budget needs, sponsors, and interested parties were addressed. The members also discussed what to do next as listed below:

1. Look for wheelchair donors in and around GTA

2. Narrow down the wheelchair features and specifications so that the first model cost will be within the budget.

3. Explore with the college research office for small research funding

4. Identify capstone projects that can be assigned to interested students during the Fall 2013 semester and Winter 2014 semester in the following departments of the school:

a. Electronics Engineering Technology
b. Biomedical Engineering Technology
c. Mechanical Engineering Technology – wheelchair design and construction

According to the decision of the first meeting, the Second meeting will be held on June 4th, 2013 to discuss the action plan for 2013 – 2014.

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IKROBO© second meeting was held in room H236 of the school on June 4, 2013. The following members attended the meeting:

1. Rao Gorantla, Professor, Electronics Faculty
2. Chris Daniel, Professor, Mechanical Engineering Faculty
3. Sandra Kudla, Professor, Biomedical Engineering faculty
4. Philip Jarvis, Professor, Electronics Faculty
5. Lauren Fuentes, Professor, Electronics Faculty
6. Pravin Patel, Professor, Electronics Faculty
7. Michael Paris, Student-MAD

The members reviewed the minutes of the first meeting and approved. Michael, the placement student from MAD then showed the project portal ‘www.ictbits.com/ikrobo’. The portal style and contents were discussed and it was decided to go ahead in publishing the portal for public use with minor changes.

Rao Gorantla proposed the following three major student project themes for the fall semester projects:

1. Appliances and remote control
2. Physiological information and messaging
3. Sensing and motor control

The members will further discuss the actual student project titles based upon the above themes for the next meeting. It was also decided to send a few students from each faculty to medical hospitals and senior's homes to study the wheelchair needs before a proper design is finalised.

According to the decision of the second meeting, the third meeting will be held before the school holidays. An officer from the research office will be invited for the next meeting.

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IKROBO© third meeting was held in at 9:10 am on October 31, 2013 in H101 Tech Boardroom by chair Rao Gorantla. The following members attended the meeting:

1. Rao Gorantla, Professor, Electronics Faculty
2. Chris Daniel, Professor, Mechanical Engineering Faculty
3. Philip Jarvis, Professor, Electronics Faculty
4. Lauren Fuentes, Professor, Electronics Faculty
5. Pravin Patel, Professor, Electronics Faculty
6. Wesley Ray, Student, Mechanical Engineering Faculty
7. Brent Lessard, Student, Mechanical Engineering Faculty
8. Zachary Fedak, Student, Mechanical Engineering Faculty

Members absent:

1. Sandra Kudla, Professor, Biomedical Engineering Faculty
2. Roy Chowdhury J, Student, Electronics Faculty
3. Corbin James, Student, Mechanical Engineering Faculty

Rao Gorantla welcomed the members to the third IKROBO© meeting. He also announced the informal approval of the project with amendments in the proposal.

1. The committee after deliberations has agreed for the chainman to amend the proposal as listed below:

a. Formal visits to the health service or senior homes will be undertaken only after appropriate levels of approvals during the trial period.
b. The committee will honor the current college IP policy.
c. The approved budget will be used both for purchasing the equipment needed for the project as well as paying small stipends to students when necessary.

2. Phil Jarvis has agreed to arrange a meeting for the committee members to study the wheelchair needs and the current models used in the senior homes with people from a senior home soon. Chris Daniel will take lead along with his students. Interested members can join the meeting when arranged.

3. Android based tablets and Zig Bee technologies will be used for command and control purposes for the project as proposed by Phil Jarvis.

4. Lauren Fuentes will create a list of sensors and other electronic components and biomedical signal processing devices needed for the current as well as future needs of the project, in consultation with Sandra Kundla.

5. Ray Choudary, student from the electronic faculty will undertake a part of command and control development as part of his final year Tech 6100 project and his proposed work will be presented in the next meeting.

6. The students from Mechanical Engineering program will create 3-D wheelchair designs after a study analysis with people from the senior homes as part of their 20% class assignments and later might continue in fabricating the wheelchair in the winter semester as part of their final year projects. Initial wheelchair designs will be on the chair and bed/ lift model.

7. The faculty committee members will recruit students from the bio-medical engineering and electronic engineering faculties to work on the project.

The next meeting will be arranged in consultations with student members to avoid any lecture/ lab time slots.

Meeting adjourned at 10.10 am.

Students
Electronics Engineering Technology
Jyotirmoy Roychowdhury
Draven Majoor
Kenneth Gardner
Kyle Aus
Ryan Borg-Verowoerd

Mechanical Engineering Technology
Zachary Fedak
Wesley Ray
Cerbin James
Brent lessard

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News:

Patent IP Seminar-26 Feb 2014

All professors involved in the IKROBO© project will be attending “patentable IP” seminar conducted by Dave Tyrrell from Vertex IP solutions on Wednesday February 26, 2014, 9 am to 1 pm. The seminar is organized by the Office of Research Services & Innovation, Durham College.

Boot Camp-28 Feb 2014

All students are congregating at 15 Dorset St, Hampton to discuss the compatibility of their project interfaces with the overall project aims and also to minimize hardware and coding for cost saving and modularity