Weekly Progress

Week 9
Final modifications to the program were made. The output signals were formatted onto a graph as a function of time. The design in its entirety was taken to the Drexel Athletic Center for testing. Testing was done on various weights and machines with Leif (left and right arms) and Matthew (right arm).

Video of Leif's right arm muscle usage

Video of Leif's left arm muscle usage


Week 8
3D-printed casing (creo generated model) for the wires will be created to contain wires in the overall device. Device needs to be tested at the Drexel Athletic Center for different weights and different people (looking for different changes of electrical activity.

Week 7
The program was ready for some preliminary testing. The sleeve was connected to the 3 leads and the EMG was interfaced with the computer and oscilloscope. Oscilloscope helped with assessing the voltage that was being transmitted. Electrical signals were observed on the oscilloscope and MATLAB, shown in the following videos. We found that conducting gel made signaling much strong, even though electrodes without gel worked well.

Bar graph of muscle activity

Oscilloscope with EMG connected

Testing EMG with conductive gel

Video of electric signal and muscle activity on the oscilloscope

Video of electric signal and muscle activity on MATLAB


Week 6
Full assembly of the sleeve, circuitry and wiring. Opened up 3 EMG electrodes, removed all the electro-conductive gel and trimmed off adhesive. EMG electrodes were sewn onto the sleeve. Wires for the breadboard and data acquisition were soddered. First testing of the EMG electrodes was conducted and collected some data. Collected data needs to be analyzed and some issues with the data collection software.


Bicep and Tendon Leads

Bone Lead

Holes on sleeve for EMG electrode placements

Sewn EMG electrode snaps

Sewn EMG electrode backs

Modified EMG electrodes

Data Acquisition Setup

Amplifying Circuit Board

Wires on the Breadboard

Connected Arduino



Week 6
Group meeting discussing general aspects of the sleeve. Decided to integrate the EMG electrodes into the sleeve. There will be a compression sleeve bilayer to keep wires covered up and in place. Figured out placements of the 3 EMG electrodes from http://gasstationwithoutpumps.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/emg-and-ekg-works/. One electrode on the bone, one electrode on the muscle and one electrode on the end of the muscle. Plan to remove electro-conductive gel surrounding electrode.

Signal Amplifying Circuit Board

EMG leads

EMG electrode

Compression Sleeve


Week 5
Check up with project advisors were conducted. Everything is running smoothly. Talks of setting up and purchasing a second EMG kit were brought up to make the project even more thorough. The decision was made to switch from a DAQ to an Arduino board. The Arduino has better open space software which allows us to cut some cost from the project. Driver files are being downloaded from the Drexel free software site to make programming and translation into MATLAB doable. More research occurred allowing for better understanding of usage prep and what our readout will give us. The preliminary build should occur this weekend.


Arduino Data Acquisition Board


Week 4
Products were officially brought to the lab, acquired the necessary printer USB cable to make the connection between DAQ and computer. Wiring from the control board to the DAQ is still needed though (will most likely come from the lab). Research on electrode requirements and how our DAQ will read our data via wiring was also done. Oscilloscope monitoring was talked about to use as an initial monitoring idea to measure differences in conditions when system is in use. The setup software and drivers were downloaded as a trial version, a full version may need be downloaded and added to the budget.

National Instruments Data Acquisition Board

Week 2
Group met in the official 103 lab to have it’s proposal reviewed. Review went well, few kinks in the scheduling and resources section were found to need a few edits. The design was discussed over with Dr. Lec and seemed to be approved.

Week 2
Group met around 3:30PM Tuesday to continue work on MUMS. Preliminary work on the proposal was coming to a close. Group decided on the material used to create the sleeve and where it would get its other resources like wiring and sensor rig from. Also the design of the sleeve was discussed and agreed upon.

Week 1
Group met around 2PM Sunday to begin working on Project Amadeus aka MUMS (Muscle Usage Monitoring System). Group completed the creation of the blog, established an online journal, team name, etc. etc. Ideas of a Youtube journal were thrown around as well. The proposal was started. Meeting time suggestions were established, no official meeting time yet. Abstract was posted to the blog.

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