Document Type

Restricted Campus Only

Publication Date

4-30-2026

Abstract

Often, people with dexterity and/or mobility issues can struggle to read because of difficulty manipulating physical books or tablets. In the 2022-2023 school year, a senior design team was tasked with designing and building a tablet holder that allows people with dexterity issues to read from a tablet. This year, the project was revised, and this senior design team was tasked with developing a book-holder module for that same user. This book-holder module is compatible with the existing stand from the 2022-2023 project, is operable in an indoor environment, and is able to fit within the designated storage cage. It features a more developed wireless, ergonomic remote and utilizes a vacuum nozzle to lift the page of a hardcover book. In addition, safety straps were implemented to prevent injury to the end user.

One of the essential objectives was that the remote transmission shall have at least 80% success rate for the expected distance of module use. After testing, the remote demonstrated a 100% success rate from distances ranging from 1 to 10 ft. An optional objective was to enable the reader to adjust the angle of the book holder by ±15° from its original position via the remote. The current remote does not have this capability and may be considered in future iterations.

The module features two clamps to hold the cover and pages in place, respectively. The cover clamps are rigid and held in place by a ratchet system. These hold the book securely to the module. The page clamps are actuated by servo motors and hold the pages down between page turns. Testing verified that the servo motors are timed correctly and have a force of 1.2 lbs on the pages, 20% above the minimum value. An essential objective was to securely hold the book flat (defined as 0°), and the prototype meets this requirement. Additional arbitrary angles were executed safely, but more testing is required to definitively state the optimal angle range for book holding.

The prototype was designed with the forward page turn in mind. The backwards page turn can be possible with the existing setup but should be developed further in the future. The page lifting and page clamping mechanisms were tested separately to evaluate the reliability and coordination of the forward page turn. The page lifting mechanism exhibited a success rate of 96.67% at lifting one page at a time, fulfilling the 80% success rate criteria. When the prototype was evaluated as a whole, on average, 3 pages were turned by the prototype before human intervention. This does not meet the working criteria, and after the prototype is improved, the test will be rerun. This will be the team’s main priority until the final presentation day.

Another objective was to complete a full page turn within 30 seconds, starting at the button press and ending with the components in their idle state. Testing confirmed that it took an average of 11.40 seconds to complete one page turn.

To ensure the safety of the end user, the prototype was tested against the seven OSHA standards identified in the Project Charter. The final prototype meets 100% of these standards.

Finally, the team evaluated the intuitiveness and ease of setup of the prototype, incorporating feedback from people who have no prior knowledge of the module. Every test subject earned 10/10 points for setting the module up correctly. The ease of setup was rated with an average of 7.71 with a standard deviation of 1.70. The overall user manual intuitiveness was rated with an average of 8.69 with a standard deviation of 1.77. Considering the standard deviation, the range for both of these metrics includes the goal rating of 9/10.

Comments

Dr. Farzan Aminian, Team Adviser

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