Sole Solutions, a team of BYU engineering students, have revolutionized an entire field in the medical industry as part of their yearlong senior capstone project.
Keith Stolworthy, a senior in the mechanical engineering program, unveiled the desk-sized workstation that produces on-the-spot customized sole inserts, known as "orthotics," during a presentation given Tuesday.
The workstation consists of an integrative system and has been designed to serve both the doctors' and patients' needs in the field of podiatrics, Stolworthy said.
Foot orthotics are placed in the sole of shoes to help alleviate pain stemming from the foot, ankle, knee and back.
Brent Johnson, founder of Iterations, was inspired to come up with a better way of producing orthotics after his son who suffered from cerebral palsy had to wait for his prescribed orthotics due to delays.
Johnson came to BYU in the fall of 2006 and presented engineering students with the challenge of designing a machine capable of producing a pair of customized foot orthotics in half an hour.
"The current process is messy and take two weeks," said Eric Radford, a teammate in the mechanical engineering program. "It takes that long because the doctor uses plaster to make negative and plastic molds of your feet and the results are then sent to the lab."
Sole Solutions built and improved upon the concepts from a previous capstone project. They designed a system that eliminates the need for patients having to suffer for two weeks before receiving a pair of foot orthotics.
When asked how effective the Soul Solutions' orthotics were, Leslie Johnson, co-founder of Iterations replied, "I have them on right now and they work wonderfully."
The machine uses six different processes to produce the sole inserts.
The foot is scanned with a digital scanner and the data is transferred onto a computer screen. The data can be manipulated for each individual patient using a computer software program designed by Caleb Waugh, an electrical engineer teammate.
The mechanical engineer students conducted analysis making sure that the system worked, while the industrial design student focused on the physical appearance and aesthetics of the workstation.
"The multiple interdisciplinary effort was really dynamite," Brent Johnson said. "This group has done an outstanding job helping me make this product idea into a reality,"
The machine has the ability to save patients' money as well as time.
"Most podiatrists use very expensive pieces of mechanical engineering equipment to produce these inserts, our way is magnitudes less expensive," Waugh said.
Ken Hardman, a Boeing engineer who received his master's degree in 3-D modeling, coached the team.
"My main assignment was to help them incorporate what they learned from lecture to this project," Hardman said.
The team's success in transferring their knowledge from the classroom to a real-life application can be tracked with their innovative designs which are currently patent pending.
Editor's Note: an earlier version of this Daily Universe story used a wrong spelling of several team members' names, as well as a bad spelling on "Sole Solutions."
NewsNet.byu.edu corrects errors brought to its attention, and appreciates the efforts of those who do so. We apologize for any problems brought about by the errors made in this story.
