Desenvolvimento do projeto e protótipo de dispositivo para despertar surdos

Abstract

In Brazil, more than 2 million people are hearing impaired or completely deaf. A major difficulty to that public is awakening in pre-defined time, since common alarm clocks make use of audible alarms to fulfill its function. Alternative devices that make use of other senses of the human body have been developed, but are scarce in the domestic market and have high costs. This monograph presents the design and development of a prototype device to wake the deaf. For this, the design methodology of products from Rozenfeld e al. (2006), which is based on Pahl et al (1996) was applied. Thus, in this monograph a literature review about the medical aspects of deafness, the national scene, and the awakening of existing assistive technologies for deaf is made. The Informational Project is then presented, with the lifting of the state of the art of devices that intend to alert deaf people. Also the benchmarking study in the national and global market of existing alarm devices for the deaf are presented. Then, the study and definition of potential customers' needs are provided. To reach this, information was collected through interviews and questionnaires. Based on the data collected it was possible to identify key customer needs for the product to be developed. These needs have been converted into a list of product requirements, defining the specifications that the product must possess. The house of quality tool was used to obtain a ranking by importance of design requirements and thus enable designers to give greater emphasis to the requirements found in the top of the list. The next step is called Conceptual Design and was aimed at developing the product design. Therein was established the functional structure of the product that formed the basis for the development of a morphological matrix with alternative solutions for each function. These alternatives were tried and arranged for product conceptions. From a comparative analysis, which takes into account the specifications of design, the best design was chosen. A conception divided into two modules was opted, one vibrator and the other as a base, connected by radio waves. The Preliminary and Detailed Design is the final stage of this work. This stage began with the presentation of the detailed layout of the design chosen, with the identification of components. To allow the sizing of the product, a diagram of restriction propagators was designed to identify the restrictions that the characteristics of some elements and components make to the project. The choice of each component was detailed and justified. Carcasses of modules were designed and a study of the mechanical strength of the carcasses was made, based on computer simulations. A functional prototype was built and tests were conducted with volunteers. Was also obtained another prototype, by 3D printing, to evaluate the option of attachment and the viability of the injected plastic part design. Preliminary results indicate that the device is an effective mean to be used alternatively as awaking for the deaf people.