• Meeting with Lili's URA professor
  • Learned about end effectors and social robotics
  • Advised: here is a solution, research a need for it
• Talked with Nat's Dad about Medtech needs and brainstorming
  • Improving single-use items in the operating room
  • Re-designing cleaning processes that rely heavily on human involvement
  • Sorting out single-use vs. reusable items
  • Surgical loupe redesign for improved ergonomics and functionality

Key Takeaway for the Week

We are exploring 5 ideas and plan to narrow it down to 2 after considering many factors including testing feasaibility, problem scope, risk, etc. Li Ion Battery fires seem to be a huge issue for many reasons...but what can we do about it? Stay tuned!

Ideation and Problem Exploration

• Team held an ideation session at Grad House over pizza and beer.
• Each member prepared a slide on a chosen problem space:
  • Nick: Lithium-ion battery fires
  • Natalie: Surgical loupes
  • Nathan: Artificial pollination
  • Lili: Mining and fish farms (shifted focus to fish farms)
  • Chelsea: Women's health (vaginal diagnostic testing)

Outreach and External Input

• Nick spoke with two Waterloo firefighters (Ryan and Wendy).
  • Key takeaways from Wendy:
    • Lithium-ion fires are a major concern, discussed almost daily.
    • Clear training and equipment gaps; strong demand for solutions.
    • High interest in collaboration with our team.
    • Seen as Waterloo's #1 local development need with growing population.
    • Example: crew had to throw a burning scooter off a balcony after thermal runaway.
    • End-of-life disposal of li-ion batteries flagged as a major issue.
  • Wendy is facilitating a meeting with the Deputy Fire Chief of Waterloo and Platoon Chief of Waterloo (Date TBD).
• Nick also connected with Patrick Durham (Michigan firefighting captain, StacheD Training on YouTube, Mechanical Engineering degree).
  • Confirmed training quality varies heavily and readiness depends on it.
  • “Letting it burn” often only burns gases; the fuel source remains.
  • FSRI researching water runoff impacts (HF, heavy metals).
  • Malaysian study shows high heavy-metal runoff; NIOSH studying long/short-term health effects.
  • EV end-of-life is highly uncertain; no established process.
  • Expressed interest in acting as an advisor/partner.

Infrastructure Setup

• Nick: Built team website.
• Chelsea: Created team Confluence page.

Key Takeaway for the Week

We narrowed our focus to two frontrunners — lithium-ion fire suppression and surgical loupes. The team is leaning toward the fire suppression space despite the higher risk and uncertainty, as the potential impact is exciting. At the same time, we are continuing to explore funding and advisory support, keeping surgical loupes as a strong alternative if feasibility becomes a barrier.

Project Narrowing & Scope

• Consulted with professors, who emphasized testing feasibility as a key filter.
• Ruled out fish, pollination, and women's health due to difficulty or lack of expertise.
• Used a decision matrix to narrow frontrunners to lithium-ion fire suppression and surgical loupes.

Research & Expert Input

• Met with Prof. Vinny Gupta:
  • Noted suppression research is often “too late,” though firefighters stressed they feel unprepared.
  • Sparked ideas around safer building materials and assistive tech for firefighters.
  • Identified possibility of leveraging ongoing fire lab experiments for testing feasibility.
• Natalie researched potential professor references for the surgical loupe project.

Funding & Opportunities

• Applied to Cornerstone with both frontrunner ideas.
• Applied to Upstart with lithium-ion fire suppression.
• Explored internal and external funding opportunities and planned for upcoming deadlines.

Team Infrastructure & Admin

• Advanced team website to ~60% completion.
• Attended Cornerstone ideation session (minimal impact).
• Planned upcoming meetings and aligned on next steps.

Key Takeaway for the Week

The team shifted focus toward the surgical loupes project, prioritizing it over fire suppression due to stronger access to medical experts, clearer testing opportunities, and immediate feedback channels. We made major progress in outreach, networking, and refining the problem space while continuing to develop infrastructure and analysis tools.

Outreach & Expert Connections

• Emailed Profs. Natalie Hutchings and Jonathan Kofman to discuss surgical loupes focus and potential guidance (@Chelsea Dmytryk).
• Emailed Prof. Vinny Gupta for further input (@Nathan Kindred Rowe).
• Met with Dr. Victor Tsang (Nat's Dad):
  • Clarified differences between open vs. laparoscopic surgery.
  • Explored current loupe usage and ergonomic improvement opportunities.
  • Discussed what tools could meaningfully improve OR procedures.
• Connected with Dr. Ian Yu (Podiatrist); future meeting being set up (@Natalie Tsang).
• Connected with Mark Greget (NuLoupes); meeting scheduled for Thursday, Sep 25th (@Natalie Tsang).
• Sent outreach email to Robert Amerlard (UW alum @ Intuitive Surgical) to discuss robotic surgery (@Natalie Tsang).
• Sent inquiry to VIP Lab at UW (link).
• Trying to connect with a neurosurgeon at SickKids Hospital (@Nicholas Drazso).

Project Management & Analysis

• Attended Cornerstone session on Sep 17, 2025 (@team).
• Drafted and refined needs analysis and problem statement (@team).
• Aligned objectives, constraints, and selection criteria across key categories:
  • Ergonomics
  • Efficiency
  • Data collection
  • Optical quality
  • Education
• Collected 2 patents related to surgical loupes and optics (@Lili Strong).
• Set up meeting with UW's robotic surgery lab (@Lili Strong).
• Team decision: prioritize surgical loupes over fire suppression due to greater accessibility of medical experts and more feasible testing opportunities (@team).

Team Infrastructure

• Updated team website (@Nicholas Drazso).

Requirements, Constraints, Criteria

Project Management

Key Takeaway

This week, the team solidified its identity with the DigiLoupes name, advanced technical ideation through morphological charts and patent reviews, and built strong momentum in stakeholder outreach—positioning us for well-informed design decisions in the weeks ahead.

Team Progress

• Finalized product name: DigiLoupes (@team)
• Refined requirements, constraints, and criteria (@team)
• Created morphological chart drawings (@Nathan Kindred Rowe)
• Developed four design concepts for morphological chart (@team)
• Completed patent research (@Lili Strong)

Stakeholder Engagement

• Met with Dr. Marc Sakwa and Dr. Andrew Nguyen to better understand stakeholder needs (@Chelsea Dmytryk, @Natalie Tsang, @Nicholas Drazso, @Nathan Kindred Rowe)
• Met with Mark Greget (NuLoupes) (@Chelsea Dmytryk, @Natalie Tsang, @Nicholas Drazso, @Nathan Kindred Rowe)
• Scheduled meetings with additional stakeholders (@Natalie Tsang)
• Attended biomedical stakeholder workshop (@Chelsea Dmytryk, @Natalie Tsang, @Nathan Kindred Rowe, @Nicholas Drazso)

Team Development & Admin

• Attended Cornerstone session (@Nathan Kindred Rowe)
• Applied for Engineers of the Future Fund (@Chelsea Dmytryk, @Natalie Tsang, @Nicholas Drazso, @Nathan Kindred Rowe)
• Investigated Gantt chart software (@Chelsea Dmytryk, @Nicholas Drazso)
• Updated website (@Nicholas Drazso)
• Created team Confluence page (@Chelsea Dmytryk)

Functional Component Ideation

6 Design Concepts

Key Takeaway

Strong stakeholder traction and steady design convergence this week: we met with multiple experts (dentistry & medical imaging), finished the morphological chart and a first-pass design matrix, and kicked off lighting feasibility—setting up clear next steps for the compiled design.

Meetings & Stakeholder Engagement

• Set up meeting with Dr. Syed Rahman (Dentist) (@Nicholas Drazso)
• Met with Dr. Syed Rahman (Dentist) (@team)
  • Main takeaway: Dentists would likely use our product; note that some dentists wear loupes all day.
• Met with Robert Amelard (Staff Software Imaging Engineer @ Intuitive) (@team minus Lili)
• Attended Cornerstone session 2 (@Nicholas Drazso, @Chelsea Dmytryk)

Team Progress

• Re-decided on project management software (@Chelsea Dmytryk)
• Completed morphological chart (@team)
• Completed design matrix and selected optical quality/aussie hybrid...need more feasibility research to conclude exact design. See week 4 design concept and morphological chart for details of these designs. (@team minus Lili)
  📄 Download Design Matrix (PDF)
• Completed design matrix and selected an optical quality/aussie hybrid...need more feasaibility research (@team minus Lili)
• Preliminary investigation into lighting source feasibility (@Nicholas Drazso, @Lili Strong)

Challenges / Issues

• Still exploring a new product name since we discovered one that matches ours almost exactly.
• Could not finalize compiled design for a few categories due to insufficient information.

Plan for Next Week

• Plan for PDP presentation.
• Advance the compiled first design plan:
  • Begin camera sourcing
  • Confirm LED chip / headlight
  • Confirm wired / wireless / hybrid approach

Key Takeaway

We all built the preliminary design presentation and researched different components where necessary.

Key Takeaway

We all built the preliminary design presentation and researched different components where necessary.

Key Takeaway

We all built the preliminary design presentation and researched different components where necessary.

Natalie and Chelsea developed flow charts for system architecture.

We did not win Velocity Cornerstone or get selected for Upstart which is a hude hit on potential funding for us. We are being bottlenecked by this and are figuring out solutions.

Software was able to display 2 different images on to the purchased AR headset which confirms feasibility of our concept. The remaining blockers are finding cameras that enable us to meet our specs and validating our board can push that much data. Exciting day though!!! Great work Chelsea and Natalie!

Meetings with Professor Zelek from the VIP lab discussing image processing capabilities. Also discssiongs internally about pivoting in case we could not find a solution to our part sourcing problem. We decided to keep going for now with many off the shelf components and need to relook at what we will be building vs integrating.