Pictorial
Last updated
Last updated
Using a biodesign framework to develop soft robotic applications for future emergent problems in healthcare systems using tissue engineering techniques for active materials. This idea surrounds the field of biohybrid robots, a category of robots that act autonomously according to the variations of the environment as a bio-computational process that translates physical and chemical input into outputs. This concept relates to the idea of creating a new living being, a creature developed to a particular context that has to live and maintain itself to continue its "functionality" and survival, where during the design process is more than important to think about the the relations between the creature and environment and how should we care for it.
The context of research will be directed and guided towards a future thinking methodology that will try to understand the history of healthcare and the evolution of its tools to map possible gaps and problems that are not being approached or left aside. With the results, a problem will be matched with business forecasting research that directs possible new technologies that could be proposed to be applied to a market niche. As a consequence, this context will guide the development and use of the Biodesign Framework created during the Design Studios sessions within the reflections produced along the first term that was summarized into the Design Dialogues presentation relating a part of each class and seminar that was experienced before.
The design process presented in the publication will include nine specific steps from Research to Implementation and Evaluation that will change and adapt accordingly to the MDEF classes provided throughout the course.
Focused on the futures thinking methodology that will map, classify, and understand which tools were developed along the history of healthcare, its reasons, and patterns that can be recognized. By collecting the technologies already developed, an ontological clusterization will be made to understand their properties from behavior, physical aspects, and intentionality of existence.
A Marketing research classification analysis method as SWOT, Porter Forces, and Ansoff Matrix within the use of Roger's curve of adoption to understand the levels of market adherence for the next years.
After collecting data from the two researches, the information will be analyzed and put into perspective with the Voroscope matrix developed by Joseph Voros to understand which scenarios would be plausible, possible, probable, and most importantly preferable to start elaborating the context that will settle the paraments to start elaborating ideas for the project.
This step relates to the idea of free elaborating ideas without any physical or economic limitations guided by the research, with the only intention to ontologically elaborate the idea of the new living being considering the Biodesign framework already elaborated.
After selecting potential ideas, this step focuses on the interaction between the creation and the context in which it will be applied, what necessities to keep it alive, and how it will behave inside of its aimed environment.
By understanding each step of the relationship between the creature and its environment, its outputs, inputs, and necessities to live inside within a specific environment, the technological biopsy part will cluster each aspect by organ-systems, organs, muscles, tissues, skeleton and so on.
This part relates to the digital fabrication methods learned, and the making process acquired during the Living Materials, Biolology Zero, and Agriculture Zero classes, which compose seven specific steps considering the difficulty and aim of creating a Biohybrid robot. 1. Genetically modifying cells; 2. Growing a tissue and understanding its histological properties; 3. Testing its active properties under certain conditions; 4. Creating a generative design structure to organize its body; 5. Bioprint the structure using the genetically modified cells; 6. Testing the organ system within the context; 7. Finally conceiving the bio-hybrid robot.
Testing the prototype in similar real conditions understanding its possible reactions for a certain period, and understanding how the implementation within its aimed context would react and transform to its existence.
By the data collected in the implementation, some points will be evaluated and selected to make specific changes to the prototype, so they can be carefully selected and changed to improve the project and its properties for better implementation in the market.
Considering my background as a biodesigner, the key findings aspects along the first term had a huge impact on my perception of how we relate to the external and the multiple ways to perceived, identify, and interact with. It was about improving my theoretical vision with biological aspects through the creation of the biodesign framework, but at the same time understanding which part within of the biodesign field I would like to improve my practical skills and how they could be implemented in a field that I have taste and curiosity for.
To improve, I would like to quote some specific aspects as the deeper practice of reading and managing the information that is being given during the classes, as different kinds of resources and books, and getting better at selecting the specific information that will guide me through my ambitions and visions towards my master's thesis in the program. Science has a big difficulty in communicating considering its terminologies and specific aspects that should be carefully chosen to communicate better inventions and projects developed, this is mainly related to the bioethics topics that are truly difficult to handle considering that a huge amount of people still don't understand how biotechnologies are already shaping our world considering a big movement towards the "natural and raw" aspects of what we create.
Agriculture Zero - How things are related to each other within an environment that surrounds them;
Biology Zero - The process of genetically modifying a bacteria by combining different DNA parts;
Design with Others - How different communities can help you alongside your journey;
Design Fabrication - Understanding different technologies and which ones should be used;
Documenting Design - The importance of self-perception through your processes and practices;
Extended Intelligence - How to use technologies to automatize certain processes and reflect on how much intelligence are we putting inside our creations;
Living With Your Own Ideas - The perception of external objects and how they affect us, something that can truly be related and applied to healthcare research;
Machine Paradox - The concept of understanding and dividing technologies as living beings;
Grade 90/100
Along my journey within the Design Studio path, some specific things would be important to point out to evaluate honestly my performance during the first term considering my achievements, tasks, and reflections. At first, the main core of Design Studio surrounds the Design Space, a place that in my case was already being developed for a certain period even before entering the course, where I had the objective along my Biodesign journey to build specific parameters, cluster, and identify patterns to use in future projects. Within this, my Space wasn't a local to discover myself or ambitions to pursue during the program, but curate the information I had, organize them, and understand the relation between each other considering the low quantity of Biodesign methodologies around the world.
However, sometimes I thought my Design Space wasn't growing, which truly got me in doubt about the improvements along the course. But with slow steps, I could perceive and connect the dots that guided me to a specific field of Biodesign, a kind of interest that was naturally molded considering the first reviews I had demonstrating true interest in developing healthcare solutions. As a consequence, my space grew in a specific direction inside of an organized and clustered local that now aims to collect and curate content related to Biohybrid Robots, a field where I can match the communities surrounding me, the framework I've built along the term and the interests that popped up within the classes we had. So besides considering some aspects to improve, my design space is represented by a sculpture that was already being molded, and now it's being polished to the ambitions I aim for.
In sequence, it's important to enhance the influence of the second most important topic of Design Studio classes, the interventions that represented a big action to understand my framework into practice. The first got me curious about its concept and how to reframe objects into a context of care with less humanity and more non-human connections, something that truly matches the Atlas of Week Signals card I've created: "Kill the Word, Reframe the Meaning". However, it truly made me miss engagement with different technologies that could change my actions and perception during the interventions as the third intervention used different kinds of AI models and questions to explore a question of care, creation, and relation with the external.
In summary, some interventions were better executed than others, and some were more important even if not so highly technologically crafted, which made me more aware of the path I wanted to trace independently of the complexity of the prototypes I've built, a question very quoted about the professors during the reviews in class. As a consequence, the Design Space and the interventions truly helped polish my knowledge and understanding of my aims for the next months with more decided objectives for the program that taught me to experiment with tools without the fear of making mistakes or being attached to "very polished answers" to the questions I aiming to solve. As a result I could reflect a lot on my practice, which was demonstrated in the reviews, but unfortunately wasn't so well presented in the reports, which I missed along the intense journey across the term, a flaw that has to be pointed but must be corrected as a ritual for the next one
As a consequence of this journey, it's more than important to quote the improvements that should be applied during the next term, which implies a better organization for reports, an integration of healthcare research through the next interventions, how to integrate the Biodesign framework in the next interventions and keep continuous research growth in my design space to be more technical and theoretical aware in the field of Biohybrid Robots.
