HALCYON

CANCER TREATMENT DEVICE

The Halcyon system is a radiotherapy device for cancer treatment released by Varian Medical Systems in 2017. It was the most extensive and detailed project I was a part of at LUNAR, which was responsible for industrial design and engineering design of the system's externals. Over the course of 18 months as a graduate intern and later contractor, I assisted by contributing to part and part-break designs, building foamcore and wood mockups, designing and testing light effects, conducting human factors assessments, performing detail part design and running finite element analysis. Collaboration was a strong thread throughout the process, from supporting a 15-member kick-off team to acting as the main client liaison to close a major phase of the project.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Formal recognition during company meeting, letters of recommendation written by both LUNAR's Project Lead and Varian's Project Design Manager

SUMMARY

SCALE MOCKUP

My first task was assisting in the construction of life-sized volumetric mockups. The radiotherapy device was to be roughly 10 x 10 x 3 feet. The model needed to be mobile, however, so it was built as eight foamcore blocks that could be quickly assembled and disassembled. In a team of two, I also built a scale model of the patient bed, which supported full weight and provided two directions of cantilevered rolling - in and out of the device opening (bore) as well as side to side.

LIGHT MOCKUPS

Throughout the project, I created a variety of light effects mockups to test both aesthetic and functional concepts. Industrial design concepts, like accent lighting, were tested for functionality. For example, one concept of light washing onto the front face of the device raised concerns about screen glare for caregivers. The device would also need to be serviced from the back, where ambient room lighting might not be sufficient. To find a good balance of effective and efficient lighting, I tested combinations of light type, quantity, flood angle, color temperature, brightness, mounting location, and angular direction.

FOAMCORE MOCKUPS

Storage openings, emergency stop buttons, bed handles, foot rests, and more became my collection of foamcore mockups for the project. With these mockups, I built up a reputation as a creative and skilled concept developer and model maker.

HUMAN FACTORS TESTING

Many of the mockups I built for this project underwent anthropometric testing. Luckily, we usually had extremes in body size available at the office. The results of these tests informed final design decisions.

DETAIL PART DESIGN

Later portions of the project involved extensive part modifications as internals and design decisions were being finalized. These changes created cascading effects that I addressed in CAD with techniques like master modeling. I also helped finalize part details and address issues identified by manufacturing vendors. Addressing these issues gave me new insight into part modeling and fabrication.

FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

My final contributions to this project were FEA evaluations, which I was doing for the first time while acting as a client liaison. 100+ hours of analysis and documentation was done with daily client check-ins.

key learnings

Quick mock-ups are effective tools for usability testing—interaction concepts in the form of foam, paper, and off-the-shelf lighting were efficient ways to learn and iterate.
Set up a prototyping system for increased efficiency—using the same set of prototyping materials and tools helped establish a quick workflow whenever new concepts needed to be created. Building a modular scale model as simple infrastructure allowed multiple testing studies to be run without requiring much additional time and energy.
Break down complex projects into smaller parts—this long-term project required many smaller deadlines and deliverables that were only digestible when broken down for the team to work through.