Many congratulations to our student Rafiatu in Year 11 who won the Maker Challenge competition last week. The Maker Challenge is a programme run by Imperial College London for young people aged 14-18 with a passion for ‘making’ and it covers a wide range of activities including: Arduino, Business and Soft Skills, Prototyping, Design Thinking, Electronics, Laser Cutting, 3D Printing. The programme gives the participants the opportunity to develop an idea and see it through to completion with the support of staff and students from Imperial College London.
Our student Rafiatu was involved in a project designed to help people who struggle with comfortable writing and pen/pencil grip due to several factors, such as poor grip, disability or old age. Below you can read more about her experience with the project and the products she has developed:
Writer Aid – MAGNO PEN
My project for the Maker Challenge, called Writer Aid, was inspired by someone very close to me. He has Cerebral Palsy and greatly struggles with writing grip. Despite being provided with different products to assist him with this problem, they were all ineffective. Hence, I decided to come up with a writing aid called MagnoPen, designed to completely support someone’s grip as well as showing correct finger placements and providing absolute comfort whilst writing.
The pen comes with a pair of copper gloves which can act separately as compression gloves to help circulate blood flow in areas of pain and aid people with arthritis. The pen is attached to the hand through the gloves and an adjustable strap located at the back of your hand, below the area in between your forefinger and thumb. The gloves have metal fingertips which are placed in a curved magnetic hole. The resulting attraction provides a secure grip and freedom of movement, which in the long term can help improve the overall condition.
Rafiatu has shown extreme dedication throughout the project as well as the STEM Potential Programme and we are really proud of her achievement. A special thank you to Mr Lazaroo for all his support.
Below you can view Rafiatu’s Maker Challenge Project Submission which includes her video
presentation and also a link to her Writer Aid website.
