The goal of our product is to incorporate multi-functional and versatile storage features to create and achieve a convenient and efficient cart for an athletic trainer.

  Amongst our group of student-athletes, we want to incorporate our career interests into our Senior Capstone project. We want to research topics inspired by the medical field, sports medicine, and engineering to better serve our community and those in need. 

At Elizabeth Seton, there are 12 varsity sports and about 200 student-athletes. However, we have only one athletic trainer responsible for addressing and treating the needs of these athletes, including injury prevention, diagnosis, and rehabilitation. To ensure maximum quality of care, and adequate attention to these athletes, our group will focus our Capstone Project on finding different designs to assist athletic trainers in sports medicine. Our overall goal is to research ways to help underappreciated and overworked athletic trainers to help them better serve their community of athletes.  

We are a group of senior student-athletes who have a common goal of giving back to a community that has given to us for many years.

To achieve the objectives for our Senior Capstone project, we will use several methods and techniques to brainstorm, research, and find ideas to inspire our project. 

• For our first method of research and brainstorming, we went directly to our athletic trainer to gain direct knowledge and ideas from our partner, and through this, we learned what features our storage project should include and what we should focus on executing. 

• Our second focus was researching and collecting data on how simple multidirectional carts are built, what basic features they include, and what typical materials are used to construct them. We took our data from this to begin devising a plan on how we will execute our sports medicine storage cart. After finding the specific materials we are planning to use (wood, Slatwall, multi-directional wheels, hinges, etc.), we began to research on sites like Home Depot, Lowes, and other home improvement retailers for estimated costs of materials and how much we may need. Once we determine the amount of materials we need, we will use our experience with Tinkercad to create an online 3D model to help us build, plan, and construct our final product. 

• Our final product will be created using mechanical engineering tools and machines provided by our LEAD program for our use. 

This project will be proposed and completed within a 4-5 month time frame by the end of our school year. These steps will help us break down our planning process into sections for us to efficiently execute each step of the engineering design process to produce a functional capstone product which in our hopes will be used in future years by Elizabeth Seton’s athletic training department. 

Our goal with our product is to incorporate multi-functional and versatile storage features to achieve convenience and efficiency. 

Some specifics of our mobile storage with other features in it:

• • Add 2-4 large cubbies

  • Racks to hold weights for rehabilitation

  • PVC Slatwall and sliding hooks for bands

  • Possibly 2 drawers for greater storage capacity

Boundaries/Constraints: 

• With our $800 budget, we will construct a multi-functioning, versatile cart 

• Requested to be round 6ft tall

• Size of training room -- goal to make size reasonable to fit in the training room

• Time constraints to finish by the beginning of May

Timeline:

• • November: Research topics and logistics

  • December: Project Proposal Due

  • January: Order materials and finalize extra elements based on the remaining budget 

  • *Leave some remaining budget for ‘in case of emergency’

  • February-April: Build a cart and add extra materials and elements

*Finish construction of the cart by Mid/End of March to test stability and durability. Present the cart to Trainer Ty to ask opinion on any possible improvements or changes that he thinks need to be made. Make enhancements to improve cart efficiency. (Doing this step in March allows for extra time to make improvements and/or order more supplies if needed.)

• • End of April: Deliver final product to Trainer Ty

What materials to use to build a cart:

• Plywood: the plywood we use for this cart needs to be thick and durable, as it will bear a large amount of weight.

• ¾ inch plywood would work well

• We would need approximately 4 2ft by 4ft sheets of plywood

• Wheels: the wheels must also be durable and capable of holding a large load.

• These would need to be purchased.

• Power Tools:

• We would need various power tools, which we have in the LEAD room (nail gun, power saw, sander, etc.)

• Means for attaching everything:

• We would need wood glue, nails, and screws

Go to the page titled "Project Implementation and Documentation" to see photos of the building process and final product!

https://sites.google.com/setonhs.org/ame24/project-implementation-documentation 

What is Athletic Training?

Athletic training encompasses the prevention, examination, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of emergent, acute, or chronic injuries and medical conditions. Athletic trainers provide primary care, injury and illness prevention, wellness promotion and education, emergent care, examination and clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention, and rehabilitation of injuries and medical conditions.  

Athletic trainers use a variety of products to help rehabilitate injured athletes, including:

1. Strength and stability training products such as medicine balls, exercise balls, small dumbbells, and other weights are frequently used for prevention and rehabilitation exercises.

2. Heat and cold therapy (like hot and cold packs) for injury recovery.

3. Resistance training products are helpful tools for regaining athletes’ strength, flexibility, and range of motion. They exert positive and negative force on muscles and joints to help stretch, tone, and condition all major muscle groups. Resistance bands can help improve the range of motion and flexibility in athletes.

4. Foam rollers are a common recovery tool in athletic training facilities. Used both before and after exercise, they help massage and stretch muscles, break up knots, improve circulation, and combat inflammation.