Toby Design & Development Co., Ltd. Benefits Humanity with Practical Creativity in the Filed of Medicine
Those who keep an eye on Taiwan's innovation may still remember that about ten years ago, students at Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology built a solar car and went to Australia to participate in the solar car competition and secured great results. After that, the team also went to different events around the world to compete with teams from various countries. Back then, the leading student of the team was Dr. Weng Jui-yu, the subject of this exclusive interview and currently the founder of Toby Design & Development. Soon after Dr. Weng sat down, he began to share with us this special and impressive episode in his life which highlights his rich creativity.
Among his many inventions, there is also one type of technology that has affected many people's lives: realistic blood vessel simulation system.
3D printing technology has been under the spotlight for years, and has widely penetrated into different industries and reshaped traditional manufacturing processes. Whether it is rapid prototype production, mass customized production, or decentralized manufacturing, it has brought great changes to the manufacturing industry regardless. Similarly, in the medical field nowadays, 3D printing technology has also taken center stage and its many applications have benefited more and more patients. Our interviewee, Dr. Weng, combined 3D printing with computed tomography (CT) technology to give the technology new value and even help eliminate medical disputes in advance.
"Before doctors perform the surgery, we can use CT images to create customized realistic organs, allowing doctors to have better control over the patient's condition before the surgery," said Dr. Weng. Simply using realistic organs, doctors can clearly explain the surgical methods and risks to family members, which can bring better communication quality between doctors and the patient's family, thereby reducing the possibility of conflicts. Under this technology, the quality of the simulated blood vessels has reached 95% in terms of how realistic the blood vessels can be, and is almost spotless in terms of structure. The only factor that cannot be completely simulated yet is elasticity, and there is currently no suitable solution with existing technology.
Dr. Weng's simulated blood vessel technology has taken 3D printing to a new level, and also initiated his collaboration with Chi Mei Hospital on multiple projects. After developing the realistic blood vessel simulation system, he has now set his sights on the field of rehab therapy. "For a while, I was engaged in teaching multimedia production, and during the collab project with Chi Mei Hospital, I wondered what'd happen if games were combined with medical treatment." As Dr. Weng explains how he began to develop the smart chessboard, we seem to have witnessed the creative thinking in his mind which features constant new sparks and ideas.
The smart chessboard is a set of assistive aids provided to rehab patients who are undergoing occupational therapy. Compared with the teaching aids used in traditional occupational therapy, its methods are more diverse, and the levels of difficulty can be adjusted according to the operator's proficiency. The device is not only designed with gameplay in mind, but is also based on professional therapy knowledge and rigorous theories since it is, after all, a formal tool for therapy.
More importantly, occupational therapy treatments usually take a long period of time. When using traditional teaching aids, therapists need to continuously make judgments and record data, and this highly labor-intensive nature makes it difficult to quantitatively record the progress and changes in a patient. With the smart chessboard system, the performance of each operation by the patient will be recorded in detail by the system thanks to cloud technology, making the analysis of treatment effectiveness more convenient and credible at the same time. However, when making the prototype, Toby Design & Development encountered a problem that was not difficult to solve but was way too time-consuming. "A chessboard has 10x10 grids, which is 100 grids in total, and there are electronic components and wires behind each grid; I feel like a failed handyman every day, soldering and arranging wires at the same time," says Dr. Weng when he describes the development of the smart chessboard (Beta version).
Fortunately, after receiving assistance from the IoT Service Hub of the Institute for Information Industry (III), the problem was easily solved. The solution can be divided into mainly four aspects:
- Domestic IC solutions were introduced to replace ICs that may have information security risks, facilitating export to more markets in the future;
- Wireless connection programs were developed with circuit design optimized to simplify structure and use;
- A cloud platform was set up to record user data and unleash the true value of IoT;
- The mechanism was optimized to reduce thickness, thus making the device portable and allowing therapists to use it in more scenarios. (It's even possible for patients to perform treatment themselves at home.)
After a series of transformations, the smart chessboard has been launched with a new look and higher practicality. At the moment, it has entered the final stage of clinical evidence and is waiting for the issuance of its MD license number so that it can officially provide services to patients in need. In addition to the IoT Service Hub, the development of smart chessboard was also facilitated by other reliable partners, such as the PCB manufacturer who was willing to conduct small-scale production. All these partners offered indispensable assistance for Toby Design & Development in its launching of the smart chessboard.