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Port Protect

“I have been extremely pressed with Kickr Design – my team consisted of Aaron, Tim, and Mike and I couldn’t be more pleased or impressed. I don’t have enough words to express how incredible they were. They completely helped me create my vision come to life and communicated professionally the entire way. Aaron is brilliant and Mike is awesome. I’m so excited they helped me with my idea – they were extremely knowledgeable in my particularly industry and had several connections to ask questions that were beyond their expertise. I’ll definitely use them again! They even sent me flowers in the hospital! It’s the personal touches, along with their knowledge and professionalism, that made them outstanding and different than other competitions.”

Jamie, Port Protect

Key Challenges to Solve

While Jamie had a few mock ups made from napkins and butter packet containers, she wanted to work with a company who had experience in guiding inventors from beginning to end. She also wanted someone with experience with the FDA regulatory processes to potentially create an approved product.

  • Size of the bandage relative to user demographics
  • Cheap ways to prototype a viable design without investing in expensive tooling
  • How to apply the numbing agent and keep it contained for 30 minutes while still making appropriate skin contact
  • Bandage material appropriate for sensitive skin that didn’t leak

The Development Process

We put together a team of industrial designers, biomedical engineers and mechanical engineers to research, design, prototype and test several different versions of his device. We applied human factors engineering principles from concept through all stages of prototyping to create a device that provides an enhanced user experience.

Highlights from this project:

Concept Exploration

Our industrial designers drafted and proposed several different concepts to Jamie for feedback and commentary.

UX/UI Design and Prototyping Using 2D and 3D Methods

We used these methods as a cost-effective way to explore and test out different concepts and closing mechanisms.

Mechanical Design via 3D Computer Modeling

Mechanical engineers used CAD software to generate fully functional 3D models of the selected design concepts.

Creating Partial and Fully Functional Prototypes for Testing

We built multiple prototypes for Jamie to test and demonstrate how the product was used to her medical team, as well as investors.

The Results

Visual Feedback:
Single control knob points toward either tube, allowing users to quickly understand which one is receiving airflow.

Auditory & Tactile Feedback:
The knob “clicks” into place, notifying the user that the configuration has changed through both a sound and physical sensation.
Together, a stronger feedback loop between the device and the user is created, allowing time and mental effort to be reallocated to monitor the patient and away from the device controls.
With a functional prototype in his possession, Caleb is leveraging his own connections as well as his brother’s to get hands-on user feedback from healthcare professionals to continue to improve the device and prepare it for manufacturing.  
To get in touch with Jamie and learn more about Port Protect, visit https://www.port-protect.com/.

Let’s bring your project to life!

You bring the vision, we’ll bring the resources to help you build it!

We are always happy to walk you through all your options and help you make informed decisions throughout your product development journey.  We know timelines, goals and needs can even change during a project, and pride ourselves on our deep understanding and real-time flexibility to pivot with you when necessary. 

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