After achieving success in a competition organized by University of Indonesia (UI) and included in ten teams that deserved to compete in ASEAN level, Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta Exoskeleton (Myx-o) ultimately achieved a gratified result. A movement aid design for disabilities was made by students of Mechanical Engineering of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakatra (UMY), namely Satriawan Dini Hariyanto, Panji Prihandoko, and Romario Aldrian. The design turned the winner of Autodesk ASEAN Design Competition conducted on 30 January 2015, and the winner’s being announced on 6 February.
Three of them admitted that it was not easy to win the competition since they need pass several stages. Even though the competition organized by Autodesk company in Indonesia was held in 2009, it was only two universities of Indonesia which could have occasion to join this competition in 2009-2014, UMY and Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).
In this competition, UMY’s team opted disability as the design title. In fact, there were the two other themes they could choose, deaf and mute, but they agreed to choose disability for the theme. The reason was that they were eager to assist disabled people be able to do activities as normal people. “What firstly came on our mind is that we would like to provide an opportunity for disabled people so that we decided on disability and coin an aid design to help them who could not walk. This project is called Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta Exoskeleton (Myx-o),” explained Satriawan interviewed on Monday (9/2) in Public Relation and Protocol Office of UMY.
Panji Prihandoko told that they worked on the design for about 6 months and employed SOP and thinking design method which they had prepared. “The first matter we did is that we surveyed at SLB Negeri 1 Bantul and Yogyakarta Disabled Community. On the survey, we observed and interviewed disabled people. My friend and I listened to the stories how hard they to walk despite only going to bathroom. Then, the idea of the design emerged,” he said.
Moreover, working on the design, they were inspired by prior aids and they looked for the shortages. It finally brought them to the idea of Myx-o which a number of strengths are not found in other previous disabled people’s aids. “Our project design is focused on disabled people who are not able to move. Our project design is created as cheap as possible in order that it could be used by everybody from any level. For the construction, we employed materials which are easily discovered in Indonesia. It is the reason why this aid is cheap,” stated Panji.
Satriawan inserted that the strength of this aid is not only to help disabled people be able to walk but also to be utilized as movement therapy. “Because the main function of this aid would be on legs, it would ease disabled people to move. The other merit is that this aid could be used by stroke sufferers for movement therapy,” he conveyed.
Romarion added that they would develop the making of the aid. “We would complement the aid in not only motoric system but also sensory system or utilizing brain cells. It means that, when disabled people use this movement aid, this aid would have recognized the user’s thought to do anything. Thus, it would relieve the users,” he uttered.
They expected that this aid could assist disabled people to move as normal people so that they would not feel inferior anymore. “We would make their dream come true and later everybody in this world would perceive how to move,” Romario expressed.
Working on this design project, Satriawan, Panji, and Romario were assisted by lecturers of Mechanical Engineering of UMY, namely Tutik Sriyani, Ph. D. and Setia Prihandana, Ph. D. The reward of the competition was a trip to Beijing. “We are still preparing a presentation before our departure to Beijing on 10 March 2015. We would share to other participants from other states and present this project in front of businessmen. It would be carried out at Tongji University, Shanghai,” conveyed Romario
