e-NABLE internship to update NIH3D content
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Description of Proposed Project: e-NABLE internship to update NIH3D content
The goal of this internship is to hire 2 university students to update NIH3D with the currently recommended e-NABLE models. These 2 interns would be managed by Ian Roy at Brandeis University (https://scholarworks.brandeis.edu/esploro/profile/ian_roy/overview)
Update this section of the NIH 3D Site: https://3d.nih.gov/collections/prosthetics?tab=search
With a section to highlight the top e-NABLE designs: https://hub.e-nable.org/p/devices
And a repository with metadata to search and sort through the rest of the device catalog: https://hub.e-nable.org/s/e-nable-devices/wiki/overview/list-categories
Expected results/impact:
This 3D model repository will act as the tip of the spear for focusing on the e-NABLE community’s best practices.
For both newcomers to the community, as well as established groups, having a presence on NIH3D that is updated with the top designs will help sort through the design complexity of the e-NABLE hub. It will also act as a place to gather many different types of resources related to individual models together.
Estimate of work effort involved:
10 hours a week for 10 weeks for 2 people (Summer 2024):
approximately 200 hours total work at $15 per hour = $3000 total
$780 for ongoing upkeep (1 hour per week for 1 year = 52 weeks at $15 per hour)
Estimated timeline for completion:
A summer internship for 2 people: Summer 2024
(60 hours) 1st Task: Work with NIH3D to build out custom sections to cluster the top e-NABLE designs, and the rest of the collection by type
Link all resources across the e-NABLE hub and across the internet into 1 place, where the best designs are highlighted at the top
-
Information Design: Suggest sub-collection categories, input, and group by metadata
(40 hours) 2nd Task: Standardize the information design
Standardize the information design across the whole collection.
Suggest Metadata improvements to NIH’s website
-
Suggest ways for NIH to improve their website, such as search or sorting functionality based on metadata
(40 hours) 3rd task: Import all e-NABLE models from other 3D model repositories, including the e-NABLE hub device catalog
Upload all the 3D files from their model repositories (like Thingiverse) to the NIH3D Platform, to allow for 3D file manipulation and file conversion.
Put all documentation on the NIH 3D Website
-
Link to other resources as appropriate
(60 hours) 4th task: Fix missing data
-
Find links, resources, instructions, design files from across the internet to fill in missing information and resources related to these top / most useful open source projects.
(~1 hours per week on going) 5th task: Ongoing upkeep
Attend the e-NABLE town hall meetings to keep up to date with new designs.
As new designs are added to the e-NABLE hub, or other 3D model repositories - import them into the NIH 3D Print Exchange.
-
Some weeks may be busier than others - expect 0-3 hours per week varying throughout the year.
Amount of funding being requested:
$3780 for initial build out in Summer 2024 and 1 year of upkeep
Richard VanderMey Sat 18 May 2024 6:37PM
Seems like a reasonable fee, and a Great Opportunity for young people to get a hand up (pun intended) into their future. Any help to make things easier for everyone concerned will get my Vote for sure...🙏
Alberto Navatta Sun 19 May 2024 10:16AM
I have doubts both about the general strategy and the effectiveness of some specific tasks:
In general, if NIH3D will become the official catalog of e-Nable devices (I understood this this would be the desired in past exchanges with @Jon Schull and @Jeremy Simon) it certainly makes sense to invest in it, however, in my opinion, any effort to "well present" a list of devices must be combined with a similar activity done with the "devices" section of the enable hub, improving the NIH3D catalog without completely rethinking the space on the hub in my opinion only increases entropy and we will continue to have redundant, partial and sometimes conflicting information, I believe it could be more effective to recalibrate the effort in this direction, instead of focusing on quantity (thinking of all the devices) for example we could focus on quality (think only of the recommended designs) to have the NIH3D catalog and the space on enable hub well aligned.
Creating a device is not like choosing a pair of shoes (I choose the size and style from a catalogue), it requires making a reasoned choice suited to the needs and requirements of the recipient, without a clear path to reach the appropriate solution the catalog by itself is unuseful.
In terms of the tasks, I see some critical issues too by thinking to upload 3D files from their model repository in a single centralized repository brings a significant management overhead to keep the central repository updated:
the devices are community projects and I doubt it will be possible to have convergence between all device designers to use NIH3D as their reference repository
following this initial effort we have a high probability to find ourselves in the same point where we are today
The risk is that when a new device is submitted or a device is updated by its creator the device catalog is not updated and it is not possible to understand who should update it and how (ok for 1 year @Ian Roy's students will do it but later what happens?)
Before investing in creating and enriching any catalogue, as I also said this in relation to Eric Bubar's proposal for the space on printables - which either was at zero cost for the community -, I would try to define a general management strategy and a process in which then the individual steps and tasks must fit together in a harmonious and structured manner.
In summary for me the project is interesting, but, in my opinion, it risks being a partial and insufficient response to an important and real problems we have, it definitely makes sense but inserted in a broader path and at the right time.
I apologize if the above criticalities I mentioned were already addressed in town hall discussion, unfortunately bot for time zone issues and for overlap with my work I cannot attend to live community meetings and I know I am missing an important part of the community discussions.
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Ian Roy Mon 20 May 2024 2:34PM
@Alberto Navatta Super appreciate your feedback! I agree with much of what you are saying here. This proposed project is not a 100% solution to everything a perfect device catalogue integrated with the hub could be - but it is a relatively low cost and relatively quick way to improve many of the pain points that exist in the device catalog today. The goal would be for Eric Bubar's group to focus on curating a few well tested devices on Printables, and a more comprehensive search database of all devices on NIH3D.
The complexity of the device catalogue is both the one of the greatest strengths of this open source hardware community, and one of its greatest challenges. One future benefit that could come from this project is that the metadata schema and search/sort logic that is developed could be exported to another more holistic system someday in the future.
ebubar Tue 28 May 2024 11:03PM
I think this seems reasonable given the scale of work and effort. @Alberto Navatta There have been town-hall and strategic planning discussions on how to document and share devices and I think the consensus was that NIH is a good source for all designs to go (with some efforts to notate which are the top/recommended designs) and Printables would be a HIGHLY (some might say ruthlessly) curated set of designs. I volunteered to do that for free, since its VERY rare for a new design to release that is VERY thoroughly documented, prints nicely/easily and passes testing that we do in my lab (essentially the box and block test) making the task a pretty low lift. Getting designs onto NIH is a much bigger lift and I think is worth funding.
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Ian Roy Wed 29 May 2024 4:02PM
@Jeremy Simon Can we move this to a vote?
Poll Created Wed 29 May 2024 4:06PM
e-NABLE internship to update NIH3D content Closed Mon 29 Jul 2024 5:00PM
This proposal has passed unanimously with 17 agree votes.
Description of Proposed Project: e-NABLE internship to update NIH3D content
The goal of this internship is to hire 2 university students to update NIH3D with the currently recommended e-NABLE models. These 2 interns would be managed by Ian Roy at Brandeis University (https://scholarworks.brandeis.edu/esploro/profile/ian_roy/overview)
Update this section of the NIH 3D Site: https://3d.nih.gov/collections/prosthetics?tab=search
With a section to highlight the top e-NABLE designs: https://hub.e-nable.org/p/devices
And a repository with metadata to search and sort through the rest of the device catalog: https://hub.e-nable.org/s/e-nable-devices/wiki/overview/list-categories
Expected results/impact:
This 3D model repository will act as the tip of the spear for focusing on the e-NABLE community’s best practices.
For both newcomers to the community, as well as established groups, having a presence on NIH3D that is updated with the top designs will help sort through the design complexity of the e-NABLE hub. It will also act as a place to gather many different types of resources related to individual models together.
Estimate of work effort involved:
10 hours a week for 10 weeks for 2 people (Summer 2024):
approximately 200 hours total work at $15 per hour = $3000 total
$780 for ongoing upkeep (1 hour per week for 1 year = 52 weeks at $15 per hour)
Estimated timeline for completion:
A summer internship for 2 people: Summer 2024
(60 hours) 1st Task: Work with NIH3D to build out custom sections to cluster the top e-NABLE designs, and the rest of the collection by type
Link all resources across the e-NABLE hub and across the internet into 1 place, where the best designs are highlighted at the top
-
Information Design: Suggest sub-collection categories, input, and group by metadata
(40 hours) 2nd Task: Standardize the information design
Standardize the information design across the whole collection.
Suggest Metadata improvements to NIH’s website
-
Suggest ways for NIH to improve their website, such as search or sorting functionality based on metadata
(40 hours) 3rd task: Import all e-NABLE models from other 3D model repositories, including the e-NABLE hub device catalog
Upload all the 3D files from their model repositories (like Thingiverse) to the NIH3D Platform, to allow for 3D file manipulation and file conversion.
Put all documentation on the NIH 3D Website
-
Link to other resources as appropriate
(60 hours) 4th task: Fix missing data
-
Find links, resources, instructions, design files from across the internet to fill in missing information and resources related to these top / most useful open source projects.
(~1 hours per week on going) 5th task: Ongoing upkeep
Attend the e-NABLE town hall meetings to keep up to date with new designs.
As new designs are added to the e-NABLE hub, or other 3D model repositories - import them into the NIH 3D Print Exchange.
-
Some weeks may be busier than others - expect 0-3 hours per week varying throughout the year.
Amount of funding being requested:
$3780 for initial build out in Summer 2024 and 1 year of upkeep
Results
Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
---|---|---|---|---|
|
Agree | 95.8% | 23 |
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Abstain | 4.2% | 1 |
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|
Disagree | 0.0% | 0 | ||
Block | 0.0% | 0 | ||
Undecided | 0% | 204 |
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24 of 228 people have participated (10%)
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Ian Roy
Wed 29 May 2024 4:06PM
I am excited to see how the NIH 3D Print Exchange can help solve some of the complexity of navigating all the amazing devices in the e-NABLE device catalog!
Rafly Ilmyansyah
Wed 29 May 2024 4:06PM
I hope this can be realized and can make it easier for all volunteers at e-nable to solve the problems and difficulties they face
Alberto Navatta
Wed 29 May 2024 4:06PM
Thanks to @Ian Roy and @ebubar for the clarifications, now the picture is more clear for me, I agree on the proposal
Sandra Dermisek · Sat 18 May 2024 1:45PM
I would support this. It would improve finding the correct device and have only 1 place to go to to find what you need. It would be also great if you can request to add a device to the collection.