Smart Condoms (Stanford ME 310)
Length: one week
Topics Explored: medical wearables, basic circuit design Part of a week-long "dark horse" prototyping exercise, in which an unconventional design space is explored, this project was inspired by a 2013 challenge posed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to reinvent the condom. My Stanford design team was sponsored by Microsoft, and as such, we thought it would be a fitting pursuit. The team brainstormed many areas of possible improvement, including safety, ease-of-application, and pleasure. For a physical prototype, a defect detector was created out of acrylic and simple wiring. A voltage is applied on either side of a mounted condom or piece of latex. The latex is then wetted, and a multimeter is used to measure current on one side. A condom with a tear or defect will allow current to pass through, completing the circuit, while a safe condom will block the flow of electrons and no current should be detected. |
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