- 📅 · Period:
May 2017 – Feb 2019 💰 · Funding:
Funded research contract, Roche Spa.🏛 · Coordinator:
Politecnico di Milano, Italy🤝 · Partners:
2 academic/industrial institutions and 3 regional/national patient associations, Italy⭐ · My Role:
Master Thesis Student (until April 2018), Funded collaborator🏫 · My Affiliation:
Master Thesis Student (until April 2018), Research Fellow (Jun 2018 - Feb 2019), Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering "Giulio Natta", Politecnico di Milano (Italy)🏷️ · Keywords:
Codesign, Assistive technology, Customization, 3D printing, Rheumatic diseases, Arthritis, Social sustainability, Assistive aid, Parametric design.
Overview
Noi Non Ci Fermiamo ("We Do Not Stop") is a research project developed at +Lab, the 3D printing research laboratory of Politecnico di Milano, in collaboration with Roche S.p.A. and three Italian patient associations: ANMAR (National Association of Rheumatic Patients), APMARR (National Association of People with Rheumatological and Rare Diseases), and ALOMAR (Lombard Association for Rheumatic Diseases). The project focused on co-design to develop customizable, low-cost assistive products for people living with rheumatic diseases, using low-cost 3D printing and parametric design. Nine patients with rheumatic conditions (rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, giant cell arteritis, systemic sclerosis) joined a multidisciplinary team of designers and occupational therapists as full co-designers, each contributing a personal brief corresponding to a specific daily-life need. The project resulted in nine 3D-printed assistive products, i.e., Manola (object picker), Daisy (bottle opener), Angie's Brush (hair washing aid), Pinzamisù (door/drawer handle grip), sCarpe Diem (foldable shoe horn), Pinzamigiù (ATM card retriever), Le Micheline (cutlery grips), Up-Peel (vegetable peeler set), and L'Hook (seatbelt aid). The products have been distributed with open-source licenses and made available via parametric online configurators on ShapeDiver. A sizing system (S, M, L) was developed at a later stage for four products, i.e., Daisy, Pinzamisù, Le Micheline, and L'Hook, and distributed to patients through rheumatologists supported by Roche for collecting userfeedback. 1
Romani A*, Orlando G, Convertino R, Zappalà F, Baldassin R, Pisu MG, Lorè A, Digioia S, Brambilla E, Marcato G, Agresta I, Basciu F, Fausti V, Ravalli G, Mantelli A, Levi M, Donati C (2019) Co-design, 3D printing and medicine for the design of customizable daily-life products. Reumatismo, 71(S2), 286–293. SIR - Società Italiana di Reumatologia. ISSN: 0048-7449
+LAB Team: Francesco Basciu, Valerio Fausti, Marinella Levi, Andrea Mantelli, Giuditta Ravalli, Alessia Romani
Codesigners: Italia Agresta, Roberta Baldassin, Emanuela Brambilla, Raffaele Convertino, Stefania DiGioia, Angela Lorè, Giovanna Marcato, MariaGrazia Pisu, Francesco Zappalà, Chiara Donati, Bianca Petrucci
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My contribution:
- Co-design: Participated in co-design sessions with patient co-designers, occupational therapists, and Roche; working on data collection, session reporting, and documentation.
- Product design: Worked concept development and design of selected products among the nine; coordinated contextual testing of all products with co-designers during workshops.
- Additive manufacturing: Prototyped and fabricated all nine products using low-cost Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D printing, including dual-material printing for selected products.
- Parametric design & online customization: Developed parametric definitions in Rhinoceros/Grasshopper for the customizable parts and created the online configurators on ShapeDiver; produced replication documentation and assembly instructions.
- Graphics & visual: Designed graphic materials for all product packaging and documentation (tags - instructions).
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Sizing system: Defined the S/M/L sizing system according to ergonomics; prototyped and printed size sets; coordinated distribution to rheumatologists and managed questionnaire collection.
Dissemination: Publications, conference presentations, participation in community outreach events, and project deliverables.
Research and dissemination output connected to my work
- 📚 Publications: 1 Master thesis, 2 Conference Papers (1 invited contribution)
- ⚙️ Technology Transfer: 1 on OSF, Shapediver online configurators of the customizable parts.
- 🎤 Presentations: Work presented at academic conferences and industrial events, including 56th SIR Conference (Italian Society of Rheumatology) (Rimini, 2019)
- 📢 Dissemination & outreach: Work presented at community outreach events, such as Technology Hub 2018, and exhibited at international fairs, including Maker Faire Rome 2017; featured in news press, blogs and videos.
- Objects friends of rheumatic patients, the design that facilitates life (Oggetti amici dei malati reumatici, il design che facilita la vita ) ANSA, Aug 2022. Italian newspress
- Design that helps hands (Il design che aiuta le mani ) La Repubblica, Oct 2017. Italian newspress
- Raffaele, Stefania and the others: the rheumatic patients design «their» objects (Raffaele, Stefania e gli altri: i malati reumatici progettano i «loro» oggetti ) Corriere della Sera, May 2017. Italian newspress
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An experience of co-designing aids through 3D printing (Un'esperienza di coprogettazione di ausilii attraverso la stampa 3D ) Noi Alomar, 2017. Italian Association Magazine
Conference papers
- Romani A*, Levi M (2020) Parametric design for online user customization of 3D printed assistive technology for rheumatic diseases. In: De Paolis LT, Bourdot P (eds) Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Computer Graphics. AVR 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 12243, pp. 174–182. Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-58468-9_14
- Romani A*, Orlando G, Convertino R, Zappalà F, Baldassin R, Pisu MG, Lorè A, Digioia S, Brambilla E, Marcato G, Agresta I, Basciu F, Fausti V, Ravalli G, Mantelli A, Levi M, Donati C (2019) Co-design, 3D printing and medicine for the design of customizable daily-life products. Reumatismo, 71(S2), 286–293. SIR - Società Italiana di Reumatologia. ISSN: 0048-7449 Invited contribution at the 56th SIR National Congress (Rimini, 2019)
Master thesis
- Romani A (2018) Over 5/95. 3D Printing and Parametric Design for customizable daily life products. M.Sc. thesis in Design & Engineering, Politecnico di Milano. Link: politesi.polimi.it